


Hungry

by ashesandhoney



Category: The Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Succubi & Incubi, F/M, Multi, Slightly Out Of Character, Smut, Supernatural Illnesses, Threesome - F/M/M, Voyeurism, how many ways can i find to save Jem's life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-06-29 10:27:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 16
Words: 41,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15727539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashesandhoney/pseuds/ashesandhoney
Summary: A fic in which Tessa is a succubus and more than 200 years old before she meets the boys. She meets William Herondale in a bar and gets far more than the meal she was planning on.





	1. A Brighter Star

She was old enough that she didn't get hungry often but no one could survive on crumbs forever. So she was in a downworld pub, being utterly avoided by every living creature in there. She was considering giving up on stronger prey and going to find a mundane when she met the boy. He was a boy. Maybe eighteen or nineteen years old and a Nephilim. She watched him from the corner and when he noticed that everyone was avoiding her, he sauntered across the room as though he had a point to prove. She tilted her head and watched him come.

He was pretty. Broad shoulders and narrow hips and very long limbs that he hadn't quite finished growing into. His hands were long and thin a marred by scars and the magic tattoos his people were so fond of. Dark blue eyes and full lips beneath a messy tangle of black curls. He smiled like he thought he was dangerous. He was making a point to someone and she let her magic slip out a little to see who was paying attention. Six Fingered Nigel and a few of the miscreants at the bar. No one worth much attention. Certainly no one worth posturing for but he was here, posturing nonetheless.

"Why are you so unpopular?" he asked.

"I'm hunting," she said.

"Are you?" he asked letting his grin slip a little wider.

"I am," she said taking a sip of her wine.

"Hunting for what?" he asked.

He was pretending to be drunk but wasn't. He was pretending to be too stupid to understand what that might mean but he wasn’t stupid either. She had let her magic out to check on Nigel and his collection of idiots and now she was pulling in far too much information about this boy. Tessa Gray was a succubus but her powers were different than most of her kind. She had never met anyone else who could see the aura of energy, of soul that clung to a person. This boy’s was navy blue and deep as velvet. She wanted to wrap herself in it.

"Someone strong enough to survive," she told him.

"So you're hunting but not to kill?"

"I'm hungry but I don't like to hurt people if it isn't necessary."

He considered that and then said, "You're not a vampire."

"I'm not hungry for blood, I'm hungry for something a little more difficult to bottle," she said.

"Oh?"

"There are other uses for a warm body than biting it," she said.

"Oh," he said again in a different tone and his eyes skated away. He was pretending to be drunk but wasn't and he was pretending to be suave but he wasn't that either. He was playing at being a bad boy but the illusion wasn't holding the longer she looked at him. He wasn't blushing but it was taking him effort.

"Is that curiosity or just embarrassment that is making your ears turn pink?" she asked him.

His attention came back up and it was challenging. He didn't like it when people saw through his tough guy act then. She leaned in and he leaned too. He was easier to sway than she had been expecting for a Shadowhunter but he was very young and this close he smelled a lot like a virgin. Strong though. His body was strong but so was his mind. He was playing games and pretending to be all rough and disgraceful but it was a carefully constructed mask. This boy knew exactly who he was and it wasn’t this person he was pretending to be. That was interesting. He had a strong heart to go with that strong sense of self and the perfect body.

She could take a lot from him without hurting him. She could swallow him down and fill herself up and he'd walk away just the tiniest bit dazed and a little bit disappointed with the next few girls he took to bed until he eventually forgot about her. She pushed a little of that desire to swallow him down into the space between them and then she took a last sip of her wine and got up and left without another word.

She found him again two nights later in the same pub. He was twirling the stem of a wine glass between his fingers and his attention caught on her as soon as she walked in. He didn't get up to come to her. His pride was too much for that but his gaze followed her as she walked across the room to say hello to someone else, someone she barely knew but she kept the conversation going just to see if the Shadowhunter boy would keep watching her. He did.

Finally she came around to sit on the bench beside him. Not quite touching but closer than she had gotten the night before. He looked at her and then slid the glass of wine over to her with a graceful flourish of his perfect hand. The same vintage she had been drinking the last time.

He was waiting for her. Not surprising.

He was willing to admit it. Very surprising.

"I did some reading," he said.

Of course he did. "Find anything interesting?"

"Do you kill?" he asked. "Seems like some," a pause, "of your kind do and others don't."

"We all can and there are some who can’t get any release unless they do but I’m from a different branch of the family tree. We're a little like vampires in that we can avoid it if we are disciplined," she said.

"Are you disciplined?" he asked.

"My grandmother was on the Mayflower when it sailed into Plymouth Harbour," she said. "It wasn't a harbour then, it was just a shoreline."

"So?"

"I was born in 1648," she told him. "I am very old and I am not dead yet. I am very disciplined. Why do you ask?"

He blinked at her. She flashed him a smile. She knew exactly what he thought they were talking about but she wasn't done playing with him yet. Filling herself up with Nephilim power was an intoxicating thought but it was also dangerous. Even she didn't hurt him, he could still bring the Clave down on her. She took a sip of the wine he had given her and let her magic wander out over the crowd. She could tell a lot by the feel of their auras: their species, their mood, how strong they were, how aroused they were. She didn't usually do it in a crowd. People were disappointing. She sat beside a bright star of a boy but most of the crowd was far lesser, duller creatures. Most important, there were no other Nephilim among them. So if he was setting her up for a trap, this wasn’t it.

Tessa was still smiling at him. She had another sip of the wine and then left on the table. This time when she got up to leave, he followed her out into the street, trailing like a puppy and not realizing he was doing it until she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back into an alley. She hesitated. She wanted to take him home. She wanted to lay him out and take him apart layer by layer until he was so aroused that the desire dripped off him. She wanted to spend days pressed in against this star of a boy.

She leaned in close and he pressed his back to the brick and took a deep breath like he was shocked to find himself in this position. She slid her hand down his pants and wrapped her fingers around his cock. He murmured for her and then gasped. He did not step back, he did not complain, he pressed his hips forward into her touch and leaned his face in close to her so his cheek brushed her hair.

That velvet of his aura was as soft as she had hoped it would be. Every part of him was warm and so strong and he wanted her and it was intoxicating. She stroked him slowly and pushed a little bit of magic into each feathery touch. He groaned and sighed and she squeezed a little tighter before she picked up speed. His hands came up to grab hold of her waist and pull her a little closer to him.

She brought him right up to the edge without even needing to think about it. She slid her hand back up out of trousers and he strained forward, leaning into her as she abandoned him. If he wasn't a virgin, his experience could certainly be counted on one hand. He even smelled innocent.

"This will relax but you won't be able to get it hard again all by yourself," she whispered to him, running a nail up and down his cock where it was straining inside his pants. She wanted to make him come and make him come now but she meant it when she said that she was disciplined. "You can find someone who isn't me, if it bothers you but I think we both know that you're going to wait for me."

She left him in the alley, leaning against the wall, his cock hard in his pants and his mouth hanging open. She wrapped the shadows around her but paused to watch him shake his head and swear. He swore again and punched the wall and then tried, for a moment or too to finish what she had started but the spell held. He couldn't pleasure himself, he’d need someone’s help for that. He leaned back and breathed hard for a little while until it started to subside and he could step back out into the flow of traffic and return home.


	2. Frustrations and Curses

His home was a complication. He was Nephilim and he lived behind the walls of their Institute. It made it harder for her to keep tabs on him than she wanted. The next time she saw him, he was out in public with a silver haired boy Tessa thought might be a faerie. She was not going to approach a Nephilim in broad daylight to talk about illegal sex acts that could get them both in trouble with the law and the Accords and all the rest of it.

She finally let her interest get the better of her pride and started waiting for him outside the door to the damn Institute until he finally came out at night. She had took up residence near a side door, away from the giant main gates and sat on a stolen chair by the corner as the sun went down. She kept a volume of poetry in one hand and half her attention on the stretch of heavy stone that led to the heavy oak servants entrance.

She missed him more than once. She did have other things to attend it and it was impossible that he simply never went out but his schedule was erratic and she found herself sitting for long stretches of time. Then she would get irritated and leave. She was not the type of person to go pining after a boy even an interesting one who smelled that good.

"I wasn't expecting it to be so hard to find you," she told him as he stepped out of a side door two days later.

"What the fuck did you do to me?" he snapped rather than say hello. She smiled at him as he stomped across the cobbles to where she sat with her book. She crossed her ankles and closed the volume and gave him her most respectful look as though he had just come calling to her drawing room. He looked frustrated more than angry. It was cute.

"A little binding spell, is it bothering you?"

"Yes, it is bothering me," he snapped.

She could feel it without even letting her magic slip out. He was on edge and just seeing her was enough to arouse him. He had his arms crossed and was trying to look stern and threatening but she stood and took two steps towards him and his shoulders dropped and his lips parted. Just a little. He probably didn't mean to do it. His arms stayed tightly crossed and he glared at her, his jaw tightening again.

She backed him up against the wall again and this time she wove a glamour as she did. He let her push him back and didn't even flinch as the magic wrapped around them. This was his front door. Anyone else might come out of that door but he looked at her like she was the only thing in the world. She couldn't tell if he liked her or not but he was certainly a little fascinated by her.

She dropped to her knees and let her skirts billow around her. She was dressed well because she had been stalking about the neighbourhood all day, waiting for him and she needed to fit in. Modern corsets bothered her and the dresses were too heavy and she wanted to strip it all off and take this boy home with her but he wasn't ready for that. She watched him as she unbuttoned his pants and took out his cock. His eyes got wide as she took it in her mouth and began to suck.

She had remembered him being big but he was one of those men where all that length and width was hidden until he was aroused. When he was soft he fit easily in her mouth and she could nurse on him as he moaned for her and chewed his lip. His cock hardened fast and soon it filled her mouth and pressed against the back of her throat. She didn't let that stop her. She let him push past her gag reflex and fill up her throat. She watched him carefully so she knew when to stop.

She went slow. She wanted this to last. She wanted him to like it. She wanted the frustration when she stopped to be an open wound. He was trembling when she did back away and stood. His cock was hard and straining and he groaned. She tucked him back into his pants and redid the buttons while he stared at her. Tessa kissed his cheek. He was too startled by it to even say anything.

"Meet me here tomorrow and if you can make me orgasm, I'll return the favour," she said.

"You're cruel," he said to her but it was almost teasing. He was breathing hard and she could still taste him in her mouth and something about the look in his eyes said he knew it. He was trying to be suave and missing the mark by just a little bit. She liked him more than she wanted to.

Tessa gave him a genuine smile. He was going to be a very, very good meal once he was properly seasoned but she also found herself smiling because she liked him. She wanted him to like it which was rare for her. She cared if they liked it enough to orgasm because if they didn't she stayed hungry but she wanted this boy to enjoy himself for his own joy. Usually she only cared that she didn't hurt them. Whether or not they regretted it when she was done with them wasn't something she had thought much about in years.

"Someone else can break the spell as easily as I can," she told him.

"Who am I going to ask?"

"I’m sure you can find a girl on the street who could be swayed to help you in such a task, you’re very pretty," she told him. "Or you could hire a prostitute or you could meet me here tomorrow night."

"So you can play with me and leave me so hard it hurts?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Why would I do that?" he asked.

"Because the orgasm, when it comes, when you're deep inside me and wrapped up in magic and skin and desire, when that happens? It'll be better than anything else you ever find in your life," she said.

"We could do that tonight."

"I'm hungry," she said.

"So have something to eat," he said.

Tessa shivered with that. He was asking for it. Really, genuinely asking for it. His voice was an offer, his aura was an offer, his body was still very hard and very interested and he reached out and let a hand settle on her hip as he pulled her a step closer to him. She bit her lip and took a few deep breaths to make sure her voice was steady. He meant it and she wanted to say yes so badly it hurt.

"I don't want a snack, baby boy, I want the whole meal, I gotta warm you up a little for that," she said.

"You've been warming me up for long enough," he said.

"A little longer, I'm not done with you yet," she said.

He studied her. His expression was a little confused and a little vulnerable and she liked him. Damn. She liked him a lot. She leaned in and pressed her body against his and ran her fingers through his hair. His fingers tightened on her waist and he was strong enough that she could feel it through the damned dress and corset.

“Maybe you shouldn’t come back,” he forced out in an uneven voice while his hands told a different story and squeezed a little tighter.

“Is this about me or you?” she asked pressing her hips in against him so his still hard cock was trapped between their bodies and he grabbed hold of her waist with enough force to hurt a little. He was so strong. Humans were not this strong. He could actually hurt her and she kept waiting for the moment when that scared her but it hadn’t happened yet.

“Me,” he said.

“Why?” she asked.

She pushed just a tiny bit of magic into the question. A little encouragement to tell her the truth. She was flirting. She was drawing it out before she had to leave. She wasn’t expecting a truth as heavy as the one he gave her but it echoed out through his entire aura as the magic pulled the answer out of him.

“I’m cursed,” he said.

She laughed, “The spell will break as soon as someone else, anyone else, brings you to orgasm. Hire a prostitute if it’s bothering you that much. I’ll be disappointed but it’s a very minor curse.”

“Not that,” he said.

“That’s the only enchantment on you that isn’t one of these runes. The angelic magic has a different pitch that I can’t read but I can read demonic magic and I can read warlock magic and I can’t read faerie magic but I can tell when it’s there. You’ve got some runes, the protection spell laid on all members of your species in infancy and the little sex spell I put on you. I don’t care if you imagine that you’re cursed with ridiculous good looks or ridiculous bad luck or something,” Tessa told him.

He stared at her.

“Go inside, or out into the city, go find someone to take the pressure off,” she rubbed the tip of his cock through his trousers and his hips jerked up to meet her, “Or wait for me. Whatever you want.”

“You can see curses?”

“I can see magic. Curses, true curses, are magic. Did you think you had one?”

She had started the sentence out flippant but by the time she got to the end, his expression had made her hesitate. He looked shell shocked. His eyes were too wide in the half light and the erection was waning fast as his attention shifted away from sex. They were still close together but he wasn’t thinking about her.

“Can I believe you?” he asked.

“There is no spell I can see on you except the one I laid myself,” she said. It was the honest truth. She scanned him again, she actually looked this time, not just at the velvet of his aura but at the magic. The glow where the runes on his skin. One of them was a binding and the line of magic ran out of it tight as a bow string but that was Shadowhunter magic too. It had the white blue sharpness of angelic power. Not this curse he thought he had. She looked at him, really looked. His arousal was dropping off but she was more concerned with the emotion.

He pressed his lips into a fine line and stared at her. He didn’t say anything else. He just stared at her and then looked off down the street to stare at nothing. He was shaken to the core. He was uneasy and uneven and his heart rate didn’t match his too pale skin. She reached out and cupped his face in her hands and turned him back to her.

“It’s true?” he said again.

“If this curse was strong enough to have an impact on your life, it would be too big to hide. Either it is nothing and it is hidden by the runes or someone sold you a lie,” she said.

He nodded but he didn’t quite believe her. That she could feel. She’d just pulled him right up to the edge of an orgasm, she had her hands on his skin, his emotions were as easy to read as a newspaper headline. Tessa couldn’t read thoughts, only feelings. This person was sad or aroused or happy or angry. It was a power that was easy to underestimate. There was a lot to be learned from a person from the way their emotions fit together. It fell short of mind reading but only by a few degrees. She was very good at making sense of people.

This person was on the brink of a terrible decision.

Tessa took him home.

Not to fuck, not to fill herself up with bright young Nephilim energy, she took him home because he looked shattered and she didn’t think he would have gone inside to cry. He didn’t seem like the type to go inside and cry. All that energy coiled and shook with the cocktail of emotions running through him. It would crest as rage before it crested as grief. He looked like the type to go start a fight he couldn’t win.

So she took him home and he let her lead him through the streets without a word.


	3. Impossible Requests

She left him in her main room and went to change into a piece of clothing she could actually tolerate and then made a pot of tea. She was coming up on 200 years old. She had lived on three continents. She had set up and knocked down hundreds and hundreds of pretty young meals. She had never taken one home and made him tea because he looked sad.

The Shadowhunter boy looked more than sad. He looked broken and devastated and dangerous. He was a ticking time bomb and Tessa wasn’t sure what was going to happen when the emotion boiled over. Tessa passed him the cup and nudged the tray with milk and sugar his way and then sat down beside him and started to run her fingers through his hair. He leaned into it while pretending that he didn’t notice. She sipped her cup of earl gray and stroked the back of his neck and waited for him to explain himself.

He didn’t.

He fell asleep with his tea half finished and his head on her lap but he didn’t say anything.

She tucked him in on her sofa and stood there and stared at him for a long time. He looked young when he was asleep. She forgot sometimes how young mortals could be. He smelled innocent when all she had been looking for was sex but he lacked the true innocence of childhood. He had believed himself cursed. Something had happened to him that was bad enough to make him believe that. She kissed his forehead and wrapped the quilt around him before she retreated to her bedroom and falling asleep alone and still hungry.

She woke up to find him gone and it wasn’t much of a surprise.

What was a surprise was that Magnus Bane showed up on her doorstep a few days later to yell at her about it.

Bane was circumspect and secretive about his age but she suspected that he was only a little older than she was. He was just a warlock with an unusual fashion sense but that didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. He was stronger than she was on most measures of magic and he was close to the Clave. He was not someone Tessa would normally have invited around to tea and she had no idea what to do about finding him on her doorstep with his arms crossed.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Bane?” Tessa asked.

“Are you the warlock who discussed a curse with a William Herondale earlier this week?” Magnus asked.

Tessa hadn’t known his name before that moment and she took a second to repeat it to herself. She was in too deep with this one. All she said was, “I might have.”

“You’ve thrown the little bastard into quite a state,” he said.

“He didn’t explain it though he did look rather upset when he left here,” Tessa said.

They were speaking politely but the tension in the air was there. Tessa was a little bit scared of Magnus but she would be damned if she would admit that. He didn’t need to know that he made her nervous. His aura was a light color, yellow or pink or maybe a pale blue, but it was so obscured by the true magic that pooled around him that she couldn’t read anything of it. She pulled her own powers back in, knowing how strong he was was not doing anything for her mood.

“There’s no trace of magic on him, you’d swear to that?” Magnus asked.

“I’m a succubus. I’m a dirty whore. People like you don’t care what I would swear to Mr. Bane and I know it,” she said.

By all rights, succubi and incubi should have been covered under the rules governing vampires that included allowances for voluntary non-fatal feeding but the Accords hadn’t made that distinction. The laws were set according to species and Tessa was a warlock. She was a warlock who used her magic to take energy and power from mundanes and other humans. Her very existence was illegal according to the letter of the law though the Nephilim never looked too closely as long as there were no complaints.

Magnus studied her. He was tall and narrow and wore a brightly coloured brocade jacket over a perfectly respectable shirt and tie. His face was stern and calculating. He was handsome and uninterested and it was almost enough to catch Tessa’s attention in a very bad way. She stopped her thoughts there before they could get to wondering what that kind of magic would taste like up close. She tried to stop herself from thinking about it. She was hungry and needed to deal with that sooner rather than later even if it meant not waiting for Will to come around again.

“At least whores get something out of the exchange, personally I’m just a slut,” he said.

She looked at him and his expression held for a moment before it tilted into a sardonic smile that she couldn’t help but return with a surprised laugh. Magnus laughed with her and she invited him all the way in to sit down and have a drink while he told her what he knew about William Herondale and his curse.

“Herondale’s story makes it likely that he isn’t cursed. A demon from a pyxis laid it and there aren’t very many demons that would be strong enough to escape from that kind of captivity with that kind of power. I attempted to convince him of that but he’s got a dead sister out there somewhere that makes him unable to believe it,” Magnus said.

“Poor boy,” Tessa said.

“He’s a little brat who has made it his life goal to antagonize everyone he meets. I’m not favourable to calling him a poor boy,” Magnus said.

“He is though, he’s all antagonism and charm but that’s draped over a gaping hole of vulnerability and loneliness. I can taste it on him even if you can’t. You tell him that he can come find me whenever he needs to,” she said.

That invite either went undelivered or unanswered and so for two weeks, she thought that it was best to put the dark haired boy with his lonely eyes and perfect hands out of her mind. She found a human target that filled the gap but left her frustrated and annoyed that he wasn’t the Shadowhunter boy who had fallen asleep on her lap. It was good enough. It was fine. It was like having a taste of a banquet and then getting nothing but dry bread.

She caught a glimpse of him sometimes when she wandered through the market near the Institute but he didn’t come back to the Devil’s Tavern and he didn’t come back to her door. He knew where she lived but he didn’t come back to her. So she let him go. No more staking out his door. No more following him home. She let it go.

She lingered in London. She considered leaving. Considered just walking away from the entire city so that she could move on from this strange fascination.

Before she worked up a good enough plan or the courage to leave, he finally came knocking.

She opened the door one night to a knock and found him standing in the hall outside her flat with his hair dripping wet from the rain and an uncertain expression on his face. He pushed his hair back from his face with both hands and it fell back in a tangle of curls. His shirt stuck to his chest under his jacket and she could see the outline of runes under the white fabric. He was beautiful but his energy was chaotic.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“My life has been built on a lie that I don’t know how to begin to rebuild around and my parabatai is dying. How are you feeling?” he asked and Tessa understood why Magnus had labeled him a brat. His tone was harsh but there was something endearing in how boldly he wore his emotions on his sleeve.

“Why is he dying?” she asked, ignoring everything else. She could hear it in his tone, feel it in his aura, he didn’t care about the rest of it as much as he cared about this. Shadowhunters were mysterious and she avoided them. She had a vague understanding that a parabatai was a sacred family member or sometimes the word seemed to mean a team of warriors who fought together.

“He was poisoned as a child and the drug that kept him alive all these years can no longer keep up. He’ll be dead by the end of the month. They don’t think he’ll ever recover enough to stand up again. I shouldn’t be here. I should be there in case he wakes,” he said.

“He’s a Shadowhunter,” she said.

“Of course he is,” Will said.

“He won’t accept what you’re asking me for. He won’t want it,” she said.

“I did not ask you for anything,” he said.

“I know but it’s there in your tone and the look in your eye. You want to ask but you know that he’ll say no and you’re afraid to face that. A last desperate attempt that might fall flat.”

He looked angry. She leaned up and kissed him gently on the mouth and he stepped back and glared at her. She hadn’t put any magic into it and maybe it shouldn’t have surprised her but it still hurt a little to see him recoil from her. She had meant it as an offer of kindness and care, not seduction but his coiled emotion took it as an invasion. She stepped back out of his personal space and took stock of him again.

He was asking for something that she had never done but was possible. Perhaps. Her magic wasn’t always predictable and she didn’t really know what would happen if she tried this. Will watched her, his expression not quite as hostile now that he had realized that she was not trying to seduce him in the middle of one of the worst days of his life.

Much like vampires, a succubus could bind a mortal life to their own. It made it easier to get a good meal if you kept a few on hand. A mentor Tessa had had for a few years before the revolution had pushed them out of France, had kept a group he called his harem. A collection of boys and girls Tessa had thought were far too young and far too glassy eyed. He had kept them like that on purpose. Feeding regularly and almost too much so they were a little drunk on the magic and the sex and the soft lethargy that came with having your life force siphoned off a little at a time.

She had never wanted one for herself.

She looked at Will and she opened her mouth to say that but what came out was different.

“I’ll do it, if he wants it done, but I only if I hear it from him. You have no right to make that request or that decision on someone else’s behalf,” she said. “His life would be tied to mine. If I lived for another five hundred years, so would he. If I died tomorrow when a runaway carriage trampled me to death, he would die at the same instant. If I starved, so would he. I’ve never had a subjugate. He would not be able to survive without me once the connection was made. There would be no true freedom for him ever again. It is not a miracle. You should pretend that you never imagined it was possible.”

Will hesitated. He stood in her doorway and looked at her with a pained expression. She nodded and smiled at him. Softly. Gently. Sadly.

This boy was too young to be carrying this much weight. He believed somehow that this was his fault or at least his problem to solve and he was breaking under it. He looked like he was about to shatter. She held out a hand to him but he didn’t take it. He stared at it and then looked up at her and then ran his fingers through his hair again. Again. Wet curls and a deep frown and nothing to say.

He turned and walked away, leaving her to stare after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw. No sex in this one at all. 
> 
> The update schedule on this one is going to be a bit of a mess. I have a lot written but I'm also in a weird place in real life right now as I sort out my living arrangement and all the rest of it. So while technically I have a solid week of chapters ready for a pass edits, that doesn't mean I'll get to doing those edits daily. 
> 
> So no promises on anything! 
> 
> Also "How is Jem going to get involved with this?" 
> 
> Like that.


	4. Hearts and Minds and Bodies

She thought it was over. That look over his shoulder and his turbulent aura was the end of it. It broke her heart more than she had imagined it would but it would make it easier to leave. He would suffer and mourn this boy he loved and forget he had ever come so close to a tryst with a monster.

The next day a note arrived inviting her to the Institute that evening. Thick, high quality paper, a neat but looping penmanship style that slanted so far she found herself tilting her head to read. He’d sealed it with a Shadowhunter seal and the rune pressed into the wax held just enough magic to make her hesitate before opening it. An invite. No explanation. Just a request for her company

She went.

He met her at the door where she had accosted him on the street and let her in without a word. The Institute was dark and drafty and soaked in magic. Mundane religious magic. Shadowhunter protection spells. The echoes of magical objects stored in their backrooms and closets and spoils halls. It pressed in on Tessa and made her second guess this. She hadn’t really stopped and though through what it mean that he was Nephilim. Not really. They were a terrifying breed and she could no longer ignore that when she stood inside their house.

Will was too distracted to notice her unease. He gave her a half hearted attempt a smile but didn’t say anything as he waved her inside. She followed him through the back halls so he didn’t have to introduce her to the other Shadowhunters and he brought her to a bedroom that stank of magic and the acrid-sweet scent of demon drugs.

The room was lit in a harsh blue white light coming from the scones on the wall. Some sort of spell work that she wasn’t interested in investigating. There was a fire burning in the grate to keep the room warm as the night got colder. A side table piled high with medicines. The curtains drawn against the night’s chill. It stank and it dripped with magic.

In the center of it all was a boy resting against a pile of pillows with a violin on the coverlet beside him. He didn’t play it. He just ran his fingers over the strings and froze when he saw them in the door. He was beautiful. Silver hair, silver eyes, pale skin, narrow features that looked born to be thin but the skin was stretched too tight over them. His eyes were bright and intelligent for the moment that they held hers but then his strength failed and they fluttered shut.

“You don’t strike me as the type to take a deal like this,” Tessa told the boy on the bed.

She didn’t know that. Not really but there was something about the way Will had told her the night before that made her sure that she was right. A boy like Will might play fast and loose with the law to make a point or to stretch his wings or just to try it out. A boy like Will might consort with a succubus. This boy was different. It was in his eyes and his body language. He was sick - he was dying - and he still found the energy to look at her with distaste. He schooled it. Closed his eyes and spoke in a paper thin voice that made her ache for him.

“They killed the demon that did this to me,” he said. “But you can never kill a demon. Banish them. Trap them. Never destroy them. They killed it, sent it back, but it crossed over again from whatever hell dimension it came from. I can feel it. It left so much poison in my body that I can feel its presence in this world. I would not die while it still walks this plane.”

Tessa shot a look at Will.

He had left this part out.

Why was she here at all? This boy and his vendetta were not her problem. Having a subjugate was more work than she was willing to take on. Sure, it would be nice to have a regular source of food so she didn’t have to hunt in taverns or on the street. But to have a subjugate, to have a living creature tied to her, it meant to have a living creature that was her responsibility. This boy was too much responsibility. His emotions spilled off of him like water from an overfull cup. He was sick. He was angry. He was distrustful. He loved Will in a way she’d never seen in two people before.

And because of that, she wasn’t just offering to take on the responsibility of one human. Nephilim. Mortal. Whatever. She wasn’t going to get one in this deal, she was going to get two. She might never get the meal out of Will that she had wanted in the first place but if she saved his parabatai, if she bound this fragile silver plated life to her own, she would be binding him as well. If not by magic, by obligation.

Will would follow this boy to the ends of the earth. She could feel the way their auras, their life forces, their souls, bled together at the edges. Jem was a sunshine yellow. Bright and warm and buttery. His soul felt like Sunday mornings. Will was darker but no less warm. Will was summer evenings when the cook fire had burned low and everything smelled a little of fresh baked bread and woodsmoke. The navy and the yellow bled together when they got close. Not one colour, two complementary ones that brought out the best in the other.

“If I do this, you’re mine, both of you,” she said.

“I know,” Will said softly.

“I accept that price,” Jem said. “If you promise that when my mission is done and I choose to die, you will let me pass on.”

“I can promise you that,” she said. “When you’re ready to go, I won’t stop you.”

“What happens?” he asked.

His eyes were shut. He had only looked at her directly, once when she entered the room. He lay still and silent, staring at the ceiling and forcing his eyes open each time they fluttered shut. She had been right when she had told Will that he didn’t want this. She had thought that meant that he wouldn’t ask for it but he was asking and recoiling all in the same sentence.

Tessa reached out and touched his hand. His muscles tensed but he wasn’t strong enough to pull away from her. She looked up at him and his eyes had fallen shut again. He relaxed again. Forced himself to relax. It took effort and his eyes scrunched shut a little tighter as she picked up his hand and held it loosely between hers.

“I’ll seduce you, I’ll make you like it. Don’t underestimate that. People who don’t want it hate to be made to like it but it’s part of the magic, it’s how it works. You’ll like it even if you don’t want to,” she said.

She would only take a tiny fraction of what she could. He was too weak for anything else. Will was strong enough for her to nearly drain without leaving him with more than a headache in the morning but this boy was on death’s doorstep. It would take a few sessions and a lot of her own energy to balance him out enough to make the connection. Assuming she could. There was a possibility that her complicated heritage would mean that she was incapable of it.

She walked him through details. He asked quiet questions and Will hovered silently. Jem was willing to try it. He had a mission and it was bigger than himself and bigger than her. He would tolerate feeding her while he worked to complete his own goals but he didn’t like it. How much he didn’t like it was written on every inch of his body. His nervous eyes, his tense shoulders, the way he held his hands, the way he glanced at Will and refused to look at her.

He was saying yes but he wanted to run for the hills.

“I’m going to spend the night here,” she said.

“Just like that?” it was the first thing Will had said in a long time.

“No connections or commitments will be forged tonight. He needs more strength before we could ever attempt that,” she said.

She asked Will to stay with them.

She wouldn’t do anything but try and get Jem to stop recoiling from her touch. She’d give him a little of her own power, maybe a little of Will’s if Will would share. Will was very willing to share anything and everything he was. He was soft and pliant and smiling.

Will leaned into her touches. Will hadn’t broken the spell she’d laid on him and hadn’t been able to get his own cock hard in the weeks. That was a shock. Tessa checked the magic three times before she believed that he’d really left himself that pent up without trying to do anything about. Will was very willing to lean in and do what she wanted.

“Are you comfortable with this?” Tessa asked Will.

“Yes, of course,” he said.

“Willing and comfortable are not the same,” she said.

“I’m willing and I’m sure that I will get more comfortable,” he told her.

“Are you sure, I want us all climbing into that bed. Is that tolerable to you?” she asked.

She was going to wind him up and wind him up and use all that pent up sexual energy to balance out his parabatai’s weakness. Will went to change into pajamas and turn the lock and order up a tray of tea and biscuits. For a few moments - barring the time she spent in a closet until the maid left - shockingly and delightfully domestic. Tea and cookies and unlacing boots.

Will locked the door and Tessa had to press down the irrational fear of being trapped in the middle of the Institute. She was here on invitation. None of the magic was aligned against her. No one knew she was here. Will caught some piece of the look and held her gaze. He started to say something but she smiled and waved him off.

Jem let her climb up beside him and pull Will in with them so they were nestled in the big bed together. Jem was drenched in magic. His hair was damp with sweat from a fever and he smelled like burnt sugar and could barely turn to look at her and there was still something captivating about him. He was looking death in the face and the thing he wanted most was to go back onto the battlefield. There was something about that that was endearing.

Jem was sick enough that he dozed off while she was cuddled in at his side and Tessa lay close against his feverish body and stroked his hair while he slept. Just his hair. She wasn’t going to win over his heart or his mind but bodies were easier to persuade. Bodies liked being stroked and cuddled and kissed. She could try to win his body over while he lay sleeping but there was already so much he resented her for. She didn’t want to make it worse. Bodies were easier than minds and hearts so she could start there. Just dozing off beside someone was enough to make you want to do it again. That would be enough for tonight. A little comfort. A little bit of ease.

“You regret agreeing to this,” Will said.

“Yes,” she agreed.

She was still stroking damp hair off the face of a boy she barely knew and she wasn’t looking at Will. She did not want him to follow this line of questioning to it’s ultimate end where he would ask her why she was here at all. She would have to decide between lying and admitting that she just wanted him to be happy. She didn’t want to say that she was willing to break her own rule against subjugating a person as a walking food source just to make him happy.

She didn’t want to admit that she was that deeply invested in him.

Will didn’t ask her to explain anything. He was too focused on Jem to be worried about her motivations. All he cared about was that she was willing to help and that there was a chance, no matter how small, that that help would be effective. He lay on the other side of Jem and held the boy’s hand. Tessa watched them and the way their auras swirled together at the edges. Two people but not separate. They were sunset fading into nightfall or that edge where the ocean met the land. Distinct but unified.

“You love him,” Tessa said.

“Like a part of my soul,” Will told her.

“He’s a part of your heart,” she said.

“He’s a part of every good thing that I have ever been,” Will said.

Tessa nodded and went back to stroking the cheek of the sleeping boy. Will wasn’t looking at her. He was watching Jem as Jem turned into Tessa’s touch. It was the first sign he had given her that wasn’t distaste and grudging tolerance. He was asleep and bodies were easier than hearts and minds but still, that little shift made her smile.

“He’s asking for something that will never make him happy,” Tessa said.

“He’s asking for something that will allow him to complete a duty he has to the world and his family, that is enough,” Will said.

“Do the Nephilim not believe in happiness?” she asked.

“We believe in it but there are other things that matter too,” Will said.

“What would make you happy?” she asked.

“I don’t even know anymore,” he admitted with a laugh that was a long, long way from happy.

Tessa reached over and slipped her hand up under his shirt to rub his stomach. She was slipping magic into everything she was doing because there wasn’t any other way to bind such a strong personality to her. The magic kept flowing when she switched her attention from Jem to Will. Will melted into it immediately. He didn’t need the extra persuasion. He already wanted her.

“Will you come for me?” she asked him. “I haven’t eaten well recently and I don’t have much to share with him. I think he’ll take your energy better than mine.”

“Here, with him?”

“I need to wrap as much magic around him as possible or the binding will never hold. You can wake him up if you want,” she said.

Will hesitated and then surprised her by shaking his parabatai awake and explaining it all to him in a low, halting voice. Tessa couldn’t even pay attention to the words. Will’s arousal had shot up at just the suggestion. His heart rate picked up, he shifted the way he was looking at her, his eyes widened and he took in an audible breath. Tessa twisted her fingers in the covers to keep from reaching for him.

She missed the first part of the conversation.

“Just you?” Jem asked. He was so weak. His voice was startled and confused and only half awake. All this medicine and none of it was enough. Tessa touched his cheek again but he was awake and he shied away from it so she knotted her fingers together and pulled away.

“Just me,” Will said.

“If it’s what you want,” Jem said.

That response made Will nervous but he didn’t argue it. Tessa watched them have a silent conversation. She could see the way the meaning echoed into their auras, they were truly communicating but she couldn’t understand what they were saying. A word here. A gesture there. A little head shake. An open palm. None of it made any sense. They obviously understood one another.

Tessa had found herself in the middle of an extremely committed and loving relationship that didn’t seem to include any sex. She’d never seen two people so utterly and unconditionally in love before. It was in every movement, every emotion, every expression, everything they did. To have someone who loved you that much was unimaginable to her. Will adored this boy and it was returned in every imaginable way. She wanted to ask him a hundred questions but she suddenly found herself with his undivided attention and she wanted that more than she wanted answers.

Will looked at her with wide eyes. He was interested, curious, sweet, nervous. So nervous. She held out a hand to him to pull him over to her side of the bed and see if she couldn’t smooth out some of those nerves.

He hesitated for a moment and then took her hand.


	5. Trust Me

Tessa leaned over Jem to slide her hand down into Will’s trousers to find his cock. It was perfect, thick and starting to get hard already. The skin was warm and silky and she wanted to taste it. Jem shifted and pulled her attention back. He was nervous and uncomfortable to be in the middle of this but too weak to remove himself and too dedicated to his mad idea to buy a few more weeks of life to refuse it.

His discomfort made her nervous and she retreated enough to make Will sigh. Will didn’t complain or argue. She could feel his attention on her but his eyes kept straying to Jem. She had her hands to herself again as she studied Jem again. “You could find yourself a vampire, blood will cost you less than sex,” she told him. “If you find the violence of having your blood taken more palatable than the intimacy of this, I won’t take it personally.”

“Will trusts you,” Jem said.

It was such a simple answer.

Tessa paused and stared at him. He was halfway into dreaming. Weak. Hanging onto this life by a thread. In and out of reality but with all his intelligence and personality fully intact when he surfaced and met the real world. She pushed a little magic into him. A little bit of strength, a little bit of her own health. She hadn’t made a bond with anyone, this wasn’t an equal exchange, this was just a gift. A bit of her life force to keep him in the land of the living a little longer.

“I won’t betray that,” she promised him.

She kept a hand on him as she rolled over him and settled down on Will’s side of the bed. Hopefully it would be enough to not be in the middle, hopefully that would help him calm down. She kept her back to Jem. She needed to block him out just a little bit if she was going to enjoy herself. There were lots of bad marks in the world. Lots of people who would never want her but she could always read it on them and move on before they got anywhere near the intimacy of a shared bed. To be curled up against someone who wasn’t keen on having her there was throwing her off.

“James?” Will asked.

It was a question that meant so much more than the words alone. Tessa waited. Jem shifted. She couldn’t see him but Will’s attention held over her shoulder as they looked at each other.

“I have no complaints,” Jem said.

Will started to say something back and Tessa reached up to touch his cheek and pull his attention back to her. She did not want them arguing and she could see the way Will’s mood was building towards an argument. He needed to shave but there was something about the feel of stubble under her hand that she liked. She cupped his face and waited for him to look at her.

“You either trust what he says or you do not,” Tessa said.

Will shifted.

“Go on,” Jem said in a fading voice.

Will looked between him and Tessa for a moment and Tessa pulled him in a little closer to her. She left magic out of it but she pressed her hips forward and arched her back just enough to drag his attention down to her. She smiled when he stopped looking away and leaned up to toy with his bottom lip. His self control cracked.

Will took to having her close with enough enthusiasm to make her care a lot less about his friend. He made room for her on the bed. He pulled her in close and settled her against his side and kept his eyes on her. There was enough want in the room that Tessa could ignore how little of it was coming from Jem. She slid her hands back down into Will’s pants and rubbed him slowly. He was so perfectly responsive to every touch. His desire was written across his face and his aura was so bright that she could sink right down into it and let him block out the rest of the world.

She stroked Will until he was hard enough to be murmuring things at her. Then she lay back and asked him to pleasure her first. He looked at her with wide blue eyes, almost confused blue eyes. She slipped out of the clothing she was wearing without looking away from him. One piece at a time. Not a proper outfit for this century but still, enough layers to hold Will’s attention for a long time.

“Come on then,” she said lying back against the pillows beside Jem. She didn’t look at him. She only looked at the boy who did want her and his eyes raked down her body with almost too much weight.

Fascinated. A bit shy. He was so sweet under all that bravado.

She was in too deep with this one. Far, far too deep.

He was definitely a virgin. He kept glancing at Jem like Jem was going to give him some advice or information. Jem was sleepy and watchful but useless in this. She’d gotten herself a matched set of virgin boys.

They were shockingly old to be this uneducated. Didn’t most boys fool around with servant girls or their classmates? How had these two missed all those lessons? They’d made it to the edge of adulthood, nineteen was her best guess, maybe twenty, without getting a good look a naked woman. It was certainly not that no one had ever offered. They were both too beautiful to have never met someone who would say yes to them.

When she had been young, feeding had made her intensely nervous. Thoughts of sin and damnation had swirled around her head every time she found herself too desperately hungry to put it off any longer. Her awakening had come with her first blood but it had taken a few years before she could no longer ignore it or pretend that she wasn’t suffering. From first feeding through the first century, she had needed to feed often and it had taken a long time and a lot of effort to shake the fear of hell and her parent’s disapproval and be able to just lie back and enjoy her body.

Maybe their long lasted virginity was that same sort of piety but she suspected that they were just too busy being in love with each other to go seeking female companionship. It certainly wasn’t that Will, at least, had no interest in female companionship. He certainly showed a rather marked interest in her body. It was delightful to watch him explore that.

Will’s hands wandered over her. Gentle, feathery, too light. She reached out and pulled his palm down against her skin a little harder and he got braver, squeezing and stroking. She reached out and started slowly loosening bits of his clothing as he explored her. Cravat, a few buttons here, his belt. He laughed as she pulled that loose and looped it around his neck to pull him close until they were nose to nose.

“Are you a quick study?” she asked him.

“I try to be,” he said.

She spread her knees and pushed him down. It took him a moment and a bit of suggestion to figure out what she wanted. She explained it briefly and fed him a little bit of magic to give him a visual to go on. He blushed scarlet as it hit him. He looked up her body, his eyes were such a deep dark blue and he was a little overwhelmed and very rumpled. He looked up at her and held her gaze.

“You’re already perfect,” she said. “I’m not going to bite you. I’m very agreeable.”

Will laughed. It was bright and happy and broke some of the tension. Tessa was almost always right about someone’s emotion but she wasn’t always right about the root of it. She knew he was nervous. She imagined that Will was nervous and worried about doing a good enough job and making him laugh cut through that. The nervousness slipped back behind the splash of humour and arousal. Tessa smiled at him and stroked his hair and nudge her magic against his confidence, it was there, she just pushed it a little to make it stronger.

Jem was nervous beside them. Too nervous. Not the kind of nervous that she could chip away at with little compliments and jokes. Tessa reached out and rubbed his stomach until his body relaxed into her touch even if his emotions were still too chaotic to read. She let her hand slide down below his waistband to the hair just above his cock as she rubbed slow circles. His nerves wound tighter but his body wasn’t listening to him. It took him a long time to get hard but it was finally happening. She didn’t touch his cock. He was too tense. He was letting her do this much but she didn’t want to push him past his comfort zone.

Besides, pleasuring him would be a distraction and she had William Herondale settled between her spread thighs and she did not want to be distracted. She pet Jem absently and let her attention settle on Will.

Will was a very a quick study and he was doing an excellent job of figuring her out. He fumbled a bit but it was too endearing to do anything but make her want him more. He spread her open with his fingers and pressed his mouth against her like it was a kiss. She had to whisper hints to get him to suck and use his fingers hard enough and find the right place to really make her gasp but he was right, he was a quick study.

She lay back and kept one hand on Jem and the other in Will’s hair and let him experiment. A succubus was designed for sex. Her body warmed up fast and got very wet, very easily. She had hated that once. The implications that came with a woman’s body that enjoyed sex were myriad and none of them were nice. She liked being touched and it had taken nearly a century for her to just enjoy it and even still, she didn’t always find partners that made it this good.

She was enjoying this.

As he edged her closer to the orgasm, she shivered and moaned and would have purred if it was possible. Will was having a wonderful time with it. He had gotten over his nerves and each time she moaned for him, his confidence burned a little brighter. She could feel his interest and his joy as he got the hang of it. How much he liked it was intoxicating.

“Come here, take the clothes off,” she said to him.

Jem’s attention sharpened a little as Tessa helped pull Will’s clothes off and drop them over the edge of the bed. He had been dozing off again, he was too weak to hold an erection and Tessa hadn’t wanted to tease him too much in case she made it uncomfortable. She’d gotten too distracted by Will to really keep up the attention anyways and had faded off to just letting her palm rest against his belly.

But taking Will’s clothes off brought his attention back.

Will laughing as Tessa helped him push off his shirt woke Jem up enough that they two of them made eye contact and Tessa could have rode the energy that crackled between them to a better orgasm than most she’d ever had in her life. Will broke eye contact first and looked back at her and she pushed his shirt down his arms until she could accidentally twist it up and force him into a position where his back arched. Jem was still paying attention and his little spike of interest was very worth it. Will didn’t notice why she was doing it and untangled himself and dropped the shirt off the bed.

He leaned in and kissed her.

Everything else fell away for a moment. She was a young girl again and this felt like a first kiss. Will kissed gently and carefully while cupping her face in his beautiful hands and she fell apart. He probably didn’t notice her foundations shifting. His bright aura, his soft eyes, his gentle lips and strong hands. Nothing else mattered for a very long time.

Jem pulled her back. He shifted or made a sound or maybe his energy just changed. He was definitely paying attention to them as they kissed, naked and kneeling on the bed. Tessa turned to glance at him and he dragged his attention away, anywhere else. She reached out and rubbed his stomach again and he groaned and twisted. She pulled her hand back like she’d been burned.

Oh no.

She wanted him to want her. Oh no. That was selfish and unnecessary and she wasn’t going to get it. Jem already wanted Will but Tessa wanted James Carstairs to want her and he very, very much did not. She pressed herself into Will’s body and bit his lip and Will pulled her in tighter and kissed her hard. The little spike of pain worked magic on him.

She pulled and nudged and whispered orders until she got Will onto his back and climbed up over him. He’d had more than a month to stew under the spell, every arousing dream, every dirty thought, they had all passed without him being able to get any relief from his body. She’d gotten him hard, he’d gotten her very wet. Jem was watching them while he pretended that he wasn’t.

“Is this something you want?” she asked him.

“Do you doubt that?” Will asked.

“No.” That wasn’t quite true. She had already started to think of them as a set, a pair, and Jem’s discomfort pressed in against her. Jem didn’t want it and she was letting that spill over onto Will who had no such discomfort. Tessa forced herself to ignore the other boy and said with a little more strength, “No. I just want to hear you say it.”

“I want you. I want this,” Will said. Immediately. On command. He was very good at pushing back doubts.

Tessa straddled his hips and she straightened and repositioned herself over him. He wasn’t going to do it so she reached down and angled his straining cock so it was easy to slide down onto. She could have drawn it out a little more, a little longer but she wanted it as much as he did.

He moaned.

He was big and she hadn’t had anyone like that in a long time and her body stretched as she slid down. Her head fell back, her back arched a little and she had to squeeze her eyes shut. Will caught her hips and moaned louder than she did as he filled her up. Long and thick enough to leave her gasping as she pushed her hips all the way down until their bodies met. It ached a little. God, it was good.

“You’re beautiful,” she told him as his eyes squeezed shut and his head dropped back. He didn’t try and pretend that he wasn’t immediately losing his mind. He lay back and braced his hands on her thighs and squeezed his eyes shut and let her have complete control over him.

She sat up over him and lifted her hips as far as she could on each stroke. Up until he was just barely inside and then all the way back down until she was so full of him that it made her shiver. She could feel the energy curling in him and just the smell of it was enough to make her giddy with anticipation.

She’d been so wrapped up in his body and his eyes and his arousal that she’d forgotten that he was food. He smelled like sex and he smelled like power and he smelled like the best meal she’d ever had. Better. She’d never had someone like this. He was too smart and too strong to manipulate entirely. She could pour magic into people and make them like her, make them want her. This was different.

Will wanted her.

Will did.

Not the magic but the person.

She picked up speed, shallower strokes but faster. His hand slid up her thighs and over her belly and he liked her. It was in every perfect brush of his fingers. He wanted her, yes, but bodies were easy. He actually liked her, he cared about her, trusted her, came to find her out of all the people in London when he needed help.

He ran his hands up to her breasts. He had perfect hands. Long fingers. Scared and tattooed and calloused but so careful. He was smiling at her and she leaned down, wrapped herself around him and slowed the rhythm so her body rocked against his as she cuddled in close. She reached out and touched Jem again. He tensed but didn’t shy away and there was no fear or disgust in his aura. He was curious at this point and the mix of arousal and the late hour made him soft and sleepy.

It was nice but Jem was afterthought.

In that moment, she only wanted Will.

She had wanted Will since she’d first caught sight of him in that bar and this was worth the wait. He was a bit fumbling. Earnest and he didn’t know what he was doing. His hands slid over her skin. His energy pushed up to meet hers like he wanted her to overwhelmed. She was also on top and it didn’t matter that have it. His body was lithe and hot and muscled under her and that would have been enough all on its own.

She used the magic to hold Will off for a long time. He was aching and struggling by the time she was approaching orgasm. She snuggled in against Will’s chest and reached out to rub Jem’s stomach again as she let the restriction drop. Will gasped in relief. He didn’t seem to understand it right away and just shook against her, holding her tight as his body came back under his control.

“Come on, angel boy, show me what you can do,” she said.

He wrapped himself around her and fucked her hard enough that she was going to ache in the morning. Even from beneath her, he was strong enough to leave bruises as he lost his self control. His hands were on her hips. He panted into her neck and his teeth grazed her a few times before he bit her shoulder hard enough to make her cry out. He pulled away and buried his face against her neck as he picked up speed.

“Good boy, don’t stop,” she told him.

He thrust himself up into her. He was desperate and aching and afraid that she was going to lock the magic back down on him at any moment. Tessa didn’t take back the control. She lay against his chest, she rubbed Jem’s skin to keep him close to this and she let Will do whatever he needed to do to her body.

It hurt. Shadowhunters were strong enough to hurt her and it took her by surprise. She knew that it was true. Understood it on a rational level, but she hadn’t been prepared for the experience. He was so strong and he was so needy and he held onto her so tight and pushed in so deep on every too hard thrust.

Tessa had kept her list of sexual partners short and controlled and almost all mundanes. She could push a mundane to the edge of their self control and then lay back and enjoy the show as they came in a rush. It was a game. An easily controlled game where she never had to give up anything.

A Shadowhunter was different. Maybe it was Will. His hands on her hips were strong enough to leave finger print bruises. His thrusts pushed up until his hips slammed into her on each stroke. He held her tight to him and didn’t seem to be aware of how strong he was, how much he could hurt her, how close he was to that line.

That was just his body. His life force, his aura, his personality were more than she had expected too. She didn’t usually care. They were usually too weak to demand her attention but more than that, most of her marks were meals not partners. She didn’t really care how much they enjoyed it once they got to this point. Will was different. His desperate needy desire was pushing at her thoughts like a kitten demanding affection.

Want. Want. Want.

It was in every hammering heart beat and every too hard thrust.

The want wasn’t because he was Nephilim. That was because that was who he was. William Herondale worked very hard to pretend to be a lone tiger but he was a kitten. A kitten who wanted to be cuddled and held and protected. She wrapped herself in around him and held on. A promise in bodies not words. A promise to hold him and protect him and keep him close through whatever came next.

As his orgasm built but her magic kept it at bay a little longer, as his fingers bit into her hips and he held her tight enough against his body to make her ache and moan, she could feel that want. She could feel how much he wanted to be protected. He was shivering with the need to be wanted and loved and kept. Tessa forced open the edges of the magic, she forced her way into that feeling - not all the way into his head just into that one feeling - and made sure it spilled all over Jem too.

Love me.

Don’t leave me.

I need this.

I need you.

She let herself drown in it too, let herself enjoy it. Tessa let go of her own self control first before she released the last bit of magic that held onto Will’s. Her orgasm washed over him in a rush of magic that left Will was shaking with all that emotion. He came hard a moment after her and collapsed beneath her. She grabbed the magic, wrapped it around them all, Jem included and looped it up like a bow around a present. It would only hold for a little while but for that little while the release and the affection and the want and the relief and the contented fullness, all fed back into itself.

Tessa had never imagined enjoying sex quite that much. Sex was food. Sex was a need. Sex could scratch an itch. Sex wasn’t special. This was something else.

“Good, that was so good, you’re perfect, you’re everything I’ve ever wanted,” Tessa whispered to Will as he lay against her in the aftermath. He’d probably jerked himself off before but the nature of a succubus dragged the emotions out and heightened every sensation. She was very sure that was the best sex he’d ever had.

He wasn’t hers yet but she could taste the way the connection would fill her up once it was forged. She wanted it. She had enjoyed him. He was strong and bright and smart and so very emotional and she felt full of him as she lay in the dark. She flung out a hand and groped around until she could get it up under Jem’s shirt again.

She poured a fraction of the power from Will’s orgasm into the other boy. Just a fraction. She was too selfish and kept most of it for herself but she gave him enough to know that he would wake up stronger than he’d been when he had fallen asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to make a point that Tessa's thoughts on virginity in this are strongly colored by her era and her nature as a succubus and her preferred method of feeding. Tessa goes to seedy bars and spends time around the kind of men who are easy to lure into bed because then she can be very sure to keep emotions away from the sex. She wouldn't normally get in this deep with some she actually liked. Her baseline is assholes who have a lot of ill-advised sex. That whole little inner monologue comes from a place of "In the past, people were more pious and religious like my parents, now people - especially men - have a lot more extra-marital sex that they then lie about to their wives and preachers." Succubus Tessa has never really examined her views on sex (see also her reaction to Magnus in the previous chapter) and carries a lot of unexamined baggage. 
> 
> Being a nineteen year old virgin isn't unusual (either in the 1870s or our era) but her benchmarks are in a weird place because of her upbringing and her experience as a succubus with low standards. 
> 
> So despite the fact that I disagree with her on that one - I'm leaving it in because it suits the character.


	6. Early in the Morning

When morning came, she was the first one to wake. She had taken and Will had given and the other boy was too weak for what she had shared to bring him back to full strength. Strength would return but it would take time. Tessa lay on her back and ran her hands over their skin. She had never really wanted this. Skulking about and collecting up followers to build herself a harem had always seemed distasteful but now that she was on the brink of it. She was dizzy with the possibility.

She was too attached to Will already and the idea of keeping him, of not having to let him go when she moved on to another city, was glorious. Tessa didn’t allow herself these kinds of fantasies. Nice girls did not and so she hadn’t. She took only what she needed to survive and moved on. No subjugated harem to siphon power from. No enchanted devotees to follow her around and offer to do anything she asked. Just her and her traveling cloak and enough time on her back to make sure she could stay on her feet.

Now she had a virgin boy to purr for her and offer up his life to save his friend. It wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t quite a love story. But it was close enough that she could do it. The friend needed saving and Tessa could offer him that. In return, Will looked at her with those midnight eyes wide and his mouth slightly open in awe and that was closer than she’d ever gotten to a love story before.

She pulled herself up so she could look over Will at the boy with the silver eyelashes and fierce determination. He was sleeping peacefully and she traced the line of his jaw with her finger tip. His skin was powder soft and he had perfect lips. She let her finger drag along the swell of the lower one and he licked his lip and shifted.

He was halfway awake and she moved on to playing with his hair until he blinked his eyes open and turned into her, sleepy and slow and beautiful. The colours weren't Shadowhunter colours, weren't human colors or even mortal colors. Silver and snow. He was exquisite and his eyes were bright and intelligent and now that he was too sleepy to be driven by anger and revenge, she could feel the echos of how deep his emotions ran.

They were a perfect set. The volatile boy with the blue eyes and the loyalty that ran deeper than his bones and this gentle creature with iron in his soul. She couldn't have asked for something better. She pressed gently against the wall between Jem's emotions and her own. It was just a piece of glass but it was a piece of glass that he wasn't ready to have breached yet. Will had accepted her and her little magical suggestions but Jem wasn't willing to do that yet.

"Will?" he said.

"Will's still sleeping," she told him.

"What did you do to me?" he said.

"I gave you a little of what Will gave me," she said. "It's his energy. No compulsion. No promises made. You still have time to back out of this if you want to."

"I can't back out," he said.

He started to struggle up to sit against the pillows and Tessa arranged them but didn’t actually help him move. He didn’t ask her to and she was still very unsure of where the line lay. His boundaries weren’t easy to read. Now that he was awake, the idea of describing him as gentle started to seem like madness. He wasn’t. He was sharply intelligent and once he’d recovered a little more of his strength, he’d be fiercely dangerous.

"Tell me about your mother, why would you give up your death and your freedom and your virginity to avenge her death? She's already gone," Tessa said.

He looked at her and then turned back to stare at the ceiling. His profile was sharp and angular and she watched him though he was pretending to speak to no one. His lips were soft but his cheekbones were too prominent. He was thinner than he should have been and she found herself wondering what he had looked like when he was stronger. Had he always been soft spoken and deliberate or was that just an illusion cast by illness?

“It isn’t a question of avenging her. It’s a question of unfinished work. My mother was killed because she let the team that killed the demon’s brood. It was the mission that ended her. I have a duty to see it finished. The Clave won’t abandon it but it was her work and she died for it. She died trying to save lives,” he said.

“And you would rather die on a battlefield than in a sick bed,” she said.

“That isn’t what I said,” Jem said.

“No, but you were not saying it so very loudly.”

Jem fell silent and Tessa didn’t push him any more. He really did have iron in his soul. He was also not very happy to have her there. She lay and watched him more with her magic than her eyes. His buttery yellow aura was a bit brassy with all his negative emotions swirling around in it. He was a little bit aroused from the memory of the night before and he was not happy about that it was making it all worse. No one moved. Will was still asleep and they were both worried about upsetting him.

“You know him better than I do,” Tessa said. Jem looked at her and she nodded at Will who had his face pressed into the pillow and his hair spread out across his forehead. “Will it hurt him if I leave?”

“Yes,” Jem said. “He works very hard to pretend not be fragile but his heart is easier to break than you’d think.”

“Then you’re going to have to tolerate my company a little longer,” she said.

He nodded and they lapsed back into silence. Tessa turned her attention away from Jem and ran her fingers up and down Will’s skin. She traced the patterns of the runes and scars on his arm and shoulder. She ran her fingers along his hands and the soft skin at the inside of his wrist. She was rewarded when he rolled into her and pressed his face into her shoulder instead of the pillow. She cradled him close and rearranged their bodies so he fit in close.

“Are you going to hurt him?” Jem asked.

Tessa looked up. She’d almost forgotten he was here. Will’s energy was still buzzing around inside her. All the empty spaces in her were full of this boy. He was warm and strong. It was hard to look past him when he was getting closer to waking and was cuddling in. Will’s arm slid around her waist and he pulled her into him as she looked up at Jem. Jem was watching them with a careful expression. Wary. Judgmental. Worried. Just the tiniest hint of jealousy.

“No, I won’t hurt him,” she said.

“You could.”

“I could but he could hurt me as well, it is an equal exchange in that way. In fact it is far easier for him to hurt me as I need him to be this close and with his defenses this far down before I could even make him flinch.”

Will nuzzled her throat and Jem watched him stir a little closer to waking. He was staring. His attention jumped up and he met her eye for a moment before he nodded and turned away.

“I am impossible to offend,” she told him. “I have been called worse things than you could invent. But that isn’t what is making you so uncomfortable. You can touch me if you want, given the nature of our deal, you might take some comfort in being the one to touch me rather than just waiting to see what unpredictable thing I do next.”

He didn’t look back at her. His aura shimmered but he was burying the emotion so deep that she could barely read it but she knew that it was there. She could guess what it was. He was young and he had been filled up with a nice serving of sexual energy. Whether it was Will’s body or hers that he was aroused by didn’t really matter. He had woken up aroused and he didn’t like it.

Will woke before she could ask Jem about it and Will was heavy and happy and every look on his face was sex drenched. Will was captivating sober. Will after she’d taken him was more than she could handle. She was territorial and protective and she wanted to keep him close like this forever. There was always an edge of this after sex but Tessa usually didn’t spend the night so she could soak it up in the morning.

It had left her overwhelmed the few times she had done it by accident. She came for food. She found these men and took them to bed because she was hungry not because she wanted their doe eyed affection. It was a side effect of the magic that she usually hated and was usually very careful to avoid.

It was overwhelming. Always. Today, it was overwhelming but not in a bad way.

Will snuggled in. He looped himself around her and pressed his face into her neck and his hard cock into her thigh and he was the perfect mix. He was demanding and pleading. So strong and so vulnerable. He shifted his hips and rubbed that hard cock against her leg. She wanted to be under him. Spread out under him while he experimented with how strong he really was.

“I don’t think Jem would appreciate it if we did it again,” she told him.

“I understand the terms of the agreement,” Jem said but his voice was tense.

“That isn’t what I said, I said that you wouldn’t appreciate it, not that you wouldn’t tolerate it,” she said.

That had been her plan the night before. She had planned to just push him along until his instincts took over and his cock was hard whether he wanted it to be or not. She had that power. But that had felt so wrong once she was there and she was getting to know him. His nerves. The way he slid in and out of consciousness. The little blush when Will had wrapped himself around her. It was more than she could take.

She wanted him.

More than that, she wanted him to want her.

“We can share Will, that will work as well as doing it alone,” she said.

Jem twisted so he was lying with his back to them. Will reached for him. Reached out with one long arm and scooped it around Jem’s waist to pull him in closer. Will lay in the middle. Jem didn’t turn around but he also didn’t fight Will when Will pulled him close. Will was happy and content and it came off him in waves.

“Someone is going to come check that I didn’t die in the night,” Jem said.

That was true and it was enough to scatter them.

Illegal. Everything that had just happened was illegal according to Clave law and getting caught at it or getting caught in the plan that they had made would mean death for her and punishment for them. That was enough to drive her up and get her dressed. She had to find her clothes and Will wasn’t helping. Will kept reaching out to run his hands down her skin and give her a happy, sleepy smile.

“I expected to feel different,” he said.

“Different?”

“I expected it to hurt,” Will said. “You said you were hunting that first night and I thought that it would hurt to have you feed on me.”

“I won’t hurt you,” she promised.

She might leave him but she would never drain him. He was all smiles and wandering hands and she did not want to leave. She wanted to barricade the door and keep the whole world out and just pull him back to bed. Instead, they were getting dressed so she could leave. They were both standing by the foot of the bed and he held out the petticoat for her to step into and let his hands slide up her legs as he helped her get it in the right place.

Finally they were both dressed and the rest of the household was still asleep enough that Will could sneak her out of Jem’s room and through the empty, echoing halls. Will let her out through a back door and before she walked away, he caught her face between her hands and kissed her like he loved her. She had to grab hold of him to keep herself steady. There was so much emotion in that kiss and it ended far too soon.

“You’ll come visit me,” she said.

“Of course, I will,” he said.

“Will he come?” she asked.

“I think so.”

“If he doesn’t want to, let him make that choice. There is honour in a good death, in a death that comes when it has been called. He needn’t suffer farther,” she said.

Will’s face broke out into the broadest smile she had yet seen from him. His eyes crinkled at the corners and his dipped his head a bit so his messy hair fell forward again. Tessa stepped in closer and pushed it back from his face, failing to rearrange it. He was still a little sleepy and rumpled and she didn’t want to take her hands back so she set to work retying his cravat while he leaned against the door frame and grinned at her.

“I didn’t keep count,” Will said.

“Count?”

“Of how long it took you to fall for him. People fall in love with him so fast. He has no idea that he has that power over people.”

“I don’t want to see him suffer. I don’t want him to feel forced into something he doesn’t want because of some misplaced sense of duty to people who are long dead,” she said. She did not admit to loving either of them. She would not admit to loving either of them. Not yet.

“I’ll invite him and let him make the decision all by himself, like a big boy,” Will said with a confident tilt to his smile. He leaned against the door frame. His hair was still askew and Tess couldn’t help herself from leaning up to kiss him again before she turned and walked off into the early morning light. If they never came back to her, she would still remember it as the greatest night of her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shmoopy shmoop


	7. To Market, To Market

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so much fluff

Tessa went home and braced herself to never see them again. They were Nephilim. They were running on desperation and the particular sort of grief that comes as someone enters the last stages of their life and there is nothing for those who love them to do but wait for the end. The law stood in the way of their little fling, as did common sense and anything approaching reason. Once the magic had cleared and the blood flow had become a little less concentrated below the belt, they would move on.

That was the right thing for both of them.

A good death. A death that came when it was called. That was what she had told Will. She hated the idea of death stealing away the iron soul of that silver boy but that didn't make it her place to decide his fate on his behalf. She had made an offer and she would stand by that offer but she would not meddle or force her way in. She wouldn’t accept anything less than him coming to her of his own volition.

She had some tea. She ate some breakfast. She sat by the window with her knees drawn up and an unread book at her side and watched the street below wake. There was a costermonger who always made the same trek up the road here and she watched him make his way slowly with his cart. She watched the other merchants hurry back and forth and a little army of children being herded toward the school. She drank her tea and tried not to think of Will’s hands on her body.

It wasn’t working so she snapped herself up and left her empty teacup on the window ledge.

Tessa dressed herself up properly. The corset too tight at the waist and her bosom pushed up too high because a little bit of discomfort would keep her from sinking back into the depths of her own imagination. She wore a dress in a pale blue that brought out her eyes and she swept her hair back and pinned it away under a hat. Respectable. Proper. Modern. She would go out shopping. She would go out and buy candy and poetry and maybe some flowers to put in her front window.

She would not wallow and she would not pine.

She would not allow herself to sink into thoughts of blue eyes and silver hair and boys who thought they had to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. She found a basket and buttoned up her shoes and checked her hair once last time before heading out to market. She locked up her apartment and had her head down as she exited the building because she was puzzling over the best route and whether she should pick up any groceries on her way past the farmer's carts.

She froze on her front step.

Will was on the street across from her building. She'd only left him a few hours before but here he was, pacing back and forth. He glanced up and his eyes slid off her for a moment before snapping back. He had dressed up respectably as well. The properly buttoned suit and the brushed hair made him look a little older. He still looked young but the respectable details suited him almost as well as the rakish hair and unbuttoned shirt front of the tavern where she'd first seen him.

She crossed the street to him with a big smile and he watched her without a word. He watched her but he was still walking so she fell into step beside him and then kept going when she reached the end of the little path that he had been pacing. He stayed with her, walking at her side like they had planned it.

"Good afternoon, did you already have luncheon?" she asked.

"No," he said. "Where are you going?"

"Shopping. It takes a bit of glamour for the sellers not to be put off by a lady doing her shopping on her own but only a little. Most of them don't care. I have a bit of a list including the booksellers down by the bakery if you wanted to tag along for a pastry," she said.

"Which book are you looking to purchase?" he asked with a smile.

"Tennyson," she said. "There's a new volume. I haven't read it yet."

"Poetry."

"There's not much I won't read, Mr. Herondale but right now, yes, poetry is my goal."

It was strange, almost inappropriate to call him Mr. Herondale. She had spent the night naked in his arms but the little bit of formality was helping her maintain the role she was playing. He didn't question it as he escorted her along the streets. They blended into the foot traffic of mundanes in their walking clothes quite easily.

"How is Mr. Carstairs?" she asked.

"Better, you helped him," Will said.

"Temporarily."

"For now."

Tessa sighed with a little smile. That was very nearly a promise. They would want to see her again. She rearranged her basket and held out a hand. Will liked to pretend to be a rogue but he had enough of a gentleman's training to offer her his arm and let her hold onto him as they wound through the market. She stopped here and there to look at things, to buy a bundle of lavender, to check the state of the cucumbers, to smile at a man playing the violin in the corner of a square. Will kept pace with her without complaint. He made simple, empty conversation that was relaxing.

"-ask him to play," he said and it pulled her back to listen to all his words. He had been talking about the musician.

"Jem does?" she asked.

"He's far better than this fellow," Will waved his hand toward the performer. Tessa had found the man charming, he had a strong aura and a deep love for his craft. He wasn't brilliant at it but he was good enough and his love for his music more than made up for any errors in tuning.

"Do you think he would? Play for me?" Tessa asked. "That stretches the boundaries of the agreement we made."

"He loves to play and I think he’d appreciate the opportunity to do something normal."

Tessa smiled at Will and they moved on. It was a nice afternoon. There were no mentions of magic or sex or deals they had struck. They move through the markets and the shops like friends on an outing and Tessa held onto his arm and pressed herself into him when a horse and rider went dashing by and they had to scramble out of the way.

He was good at keeping the conversation moving, something that she struggled with. He told jokes and anecdotes and recited rude limericks into her ear to make her laugh. They spent far longer in the bookshop than she had intended because he was fascinated by the different volumes of poetry and wanted to know what she had or had not read and her opinions on everything.

"This is different," she said and he looked up from a volume of Wordsworth and raised his eyebrows in a question. "I'm not used to this sort of crossing."

"Crossing?"

"Crossing of friend and meal," she said.

"I choose to ignore the implication that I am a roast chicken in a suit. Has no one ever taken you out courting, Miss Gray?" he asked.

She nearly laughed in his face. "Not for two centuries and the last time my aunt came with us and I nearly vomited three times. This is different."

"Why did you nearly vomit on your suitor? I ask out of self preservation," he said.

"You're safe," she said. "I would have been sixteen or seventeen. I'd never fed and I found situations where the potential for it was present to be upsetting. He was interested and I could tell and I thought I was to be damned to hell for both noticing and wanting it. It wasn't an enjoyable outing. This, on the other hand, is a very enjoyable outing."

"I'm glad," he said. "I would prefer if you didn't refer to me as a meal."

"What would you prefer?"

He didn't have a good answer for that. He stood there with his collection of books in his hand and studied her as he tried to make a decision. Tessa waited him out. She liked it when all his attention was on her like this. The bookshop around them was quiet. There weren't many volumes out for display, the man behind the counter could order in just about anything and he had ties to Downworld and had gotten Tessa spell books as well as novels and histories. He was watching them warily and didn't like to have a Shadowhunter in his shop. Tessa ignored him and turned her attention back to Will.

"We could just leave it at friend," he said. "For now, until we come up with something better."

Tessa waited until they were out on the street before she tilted his chin down to kiss him. He had an armful of books, he'd bought far too many, and he couldn't do more than lean into her touch. She didn't let it last long before she turned him around and marched him back up the market. She was smiling as she held his arm and steered him through the crowds.

Tessa sent him home with nothing more than a kiss and thank you for his company. He was a it surprised but polite about it. There was something in the way he blinked at her that made her worry he felt rejected. He turned to leave her and she called out his name.

“Today has been perfect in a way that I am not used to, Will. I want to savour that. I have not been this deep in this many emotions in a very long time. Would you join me tomorrow morning?”

“Of course,” he said automatically. Politely.

Tessa waved him back and kissed him again. Thankfully none of her neighbors looked out into the hall so she helped herself to one more. She didn't leave him with any magic. Just the kiss and a smile and an armful of books.

Tessa ducked back into her apartment and shut the door and had to cover her mouth to keep from giggling. 


	8. Demon Hunting

Tessa's disipline and pride didn’t hold.

It was his fault.

He had come to see her. He had come to see her and spent all day trailing her around through the market, being charming and smiling and listening to her talk. He had kissed her goodbye without a word of complaint that she wasn’t offering him more than that. No demands. Just that smile and leaning into that extra kiss and his hands on her waist for a little longer.

Food was easy.

Emotion was not.

Tessa could manipulate a boy into bed with a little bit of a magic and a low cut gown and almost no effort but she wasn't used to having someone whose company she sought. She wanted Will around because she wanted to hear what he was going to say next, because she liked the sound of his laugh, because she worried about him being sad or lonely, because she was lonely without him there. She felt silly and giddy and she was afraid that it would evaporate.

Tessa made it as far as standing outside his door before her nerves cut out on her. She stood there and looked at the solid oak inscribed with black runes near the top and along the bottom to keep out things like her. The Shadowhunter’s back door. She wasn’t just getting herself mixed up with a young man with pretty eyes. She hesitated. Unnerved. Uneasy. Unbalanced. He was beautiful. His parabatai was beautiful. But, they did not belong to her. The walls of the Institute seemed designed to explain that to her. These young men did not belong to her. She had no right to want creatures who were called to the service of angels. Mundanes who would never remember her name even without a forgetting spell were the best she deserved.

"You're here," he said.

She snapped her eyes up. Will stood in front of her, clad in black leather with his hair brushed back from his face. The shadowhunter gear was another reminder. Not for her to be playing with. He crossed his arms and leaned one shoulder against the door frame. Then he gave her this smile that made her not care.

"Where are you going?"

“No stories about how I forgot my hat?” he said.

“Do I need a pretense?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“Good. Where are you going?”

"I'm on patrol tonight. Just me, I think Charlotte just wanted my mood out of the house, you're welcome to come along," he said.

So she had.

She was wearing her improper clothing for walking through London. Stays instead of a proper corset, petticoats but no bustle, comfortable shoes, a dress that didn't quite suit the era because she hadn't checked before leaving the house. That was all beside the point. None of it was appropriate for demon hunting in any era.

She followed him along as he had followed her that morning.

He talked through what he was doing, why he was going alone, what route he would be taking, and why he didn’t think it would be dangerous. Tessa was arguing that she wasn’t as helpless as he seemed to imagine that she was. She tried to explain that just because she had more magical abilities related to sex, did not mean that she had no other abilities.

He went still and held up a hand and went perfectly still. She froze beside him but couldn’t see whatever it was that made him stop. He pulled a blade out of a sheath and tested the weight of it in his hands.

A ball of blue flame had been dancing on her palm and she started to extinguish it. Will grabbed her forearm, high above the fireball, his face lit in the sharp blue light and he whispered, “Keep it, you might need it.”

Will led the way across the street and then down into the dark corners away from the lanterns. The demon that Will followed down the alley was a great slinking thing. It was little more than an animal but it was a predator. Great crushing jaws. Stupid. It was so stupid. Tessa didn’t even need to attack, a few flashes of fire was all it took to drive it towards Will who dispatched it with a few slashes of that glowing blade he carried.

The ichor leeched into the stone and Tessa stared at it. Will was exhilarated. She was horrified by the presence of a demon but he was buzzing with the win. They had defeated it. Easily. Tessa knew that, she had never once feared for her life. Will was well trained and confident in his own power. She knew how to handle her magic more than he knew handle his. But that didn’t quite matter to the pounding feeling in her chest. It was instinct not rationality. They had been on the brink of death as the demon had lunged at them with fangs and claws and it had scared her more than it had scared him.

Will was laughing and happy. He kept an arm around her back as he steadied them both. The demon’s end wasn’t horrifying to him.

Tessa held onto him and watched the last bubbles of ichor dissolve and burn out against the stone of the sidewalk. Will laughed against her temple and she held onto him, held him close and as she caught her breath.

“You’re just fine, Angel,” he whispered to her, “I’ll keep you safe.”

He meant it. How much he meant it left her disoriented. There was no need. She could have managed herself in the fight but she was usually more careful. Tessa knew how to keep herself safe but she didn’t court disaster. She avoided monsters. She was the very picture of discretion. She could count the number of demons she had ever been face to face with on one hand.

Will backed her up against the wall, crowding her, pinning her, making it hard to look anywhere but up at his flushed face. He was still smiling. He was worried about her but not enough to overthrow his excitement. He’d killed a monster and he was bubbling over with the energy of that. She’d chosen a crazy person to get attached to. Brilliant.

“Having fun?” she asked.

“That was too easy to be fun but I do enjoy fighting alongside you, that was fun,” he said.

“What now?” she asked still frowning at him.

“Ichor dissolves, it’s over. Later I write it in a report, now? Now it doesn’t matter what we do unless there are more,” he said.

“There won’t be it looked like a erbas, they’re solitary, not much better than bottom feeders,” she said. Facts and figures. He nodded but his attention wasn’t on the words or the demon.

Will was too close. Too close for her to think of other things. Her blood was pumping and as the fear that came with danger faded, fear crystallized and shifted. Arousal. Always arousal. It was a surprisingly tedious element of being a succubus. Other creatures didn’t have to deal with this every time they got worked up over something unrelated. Usually she hated that, when her body outstripped her thoughts. Usually she hated it when strong emotion became sexual.

Not tonight. Tonight Will was close and warm and breathing hard. The night was silent, the alley was dark and she let herself collapse into wanting him. Every other rational thought could wait.

She held onto her good judgment long enough to pull him farther away from the street before she tucked her fingers into his belt and started to fumble with the clasp.

“Tessa,” he said, almost a warning.

“Is that a yes or a no?” she asked.

“Alley,” he said with a glance toward the street and the circle of street light beyond.

“I don’t mind. Do you?” she asked.

He cast the street another glance and then pulled out a stele and drew something on the wall by her head. She shuddered away from it as the magic took hold. Shadowhunter magic smelled strange. Will looked at her and she shook off the little shiver and raised her eyebrows.

“Glamour,” he said.

“So you mind a little,” she said.

“Just a very little,” he said.

She cracked a grin and went back to unbuttoning his strangely complicated trousers so she could slide her hand inside. Will didn’t wait for her. He had pushed her back, lifted her and caught one of her legs so he could lift it over his elbow. She braced her shoulder against the wall and kept working at his belt and buttons.

Will could lift her easily and that set her heart beat a little faster. This was the kind of position she avoided. It was the kind of position that put her under his power. It annoyed her when it was other people. It just made her breath come faster when it was Will.

Once the skirts and petticoats were pushed up, there wasn't much in his way. They didn't to take anything off, just loosened and pushed aside what needed pushed aside. Will was laughing and murmuring and nuzzling. He kept kissing her cheek and her neck and then pulling her face around to kiss her on the mouth. It was distracting. Delightful. Distracting. She kept forgetting that she was trying to open his pants. His cock finally came free, already hard, and he was kissing her as he pushed inside.

Her head would have fallen back but he was holding onto her and all she could do was moan. He settled himself inside her and pushed her back tight to the wall. Her shoulders were pinned to the brick and she had one leg wrapped around his waist and the other balancing precariously. He was holding her up. That foot on the ground, barely reached. She grabbed tight hold of the leather battle uniform he wore so that she wouldn't fall.

Will backed her up a little more, adjusting his hold on her thigh and grinning. He slid in and out a few times, like he was testing the position. He was definitely testing the position. She moaned. Each stroke made her want him a little more. He filled her up and then pulled back, filled her again.

"Will?" she said.

"Am I hurting you?" he asked.

"Don't stop," she muttered.

"Oh," he said before he laughed. It was cute, these moments when he was a giddy boy.

He pulled the leg he was holding a little tighter around his waist and she cried out as it pulled her closer. He sank in again. Will was still laughing. She had her eyes shut so she couldn't see his aura but she could feel the buzzing energy of him. Energized and happy. Wanting without being needy. Affectionate. He was so affectionate. A kiss to her temple before he started to thrust into her.

Someday, she would be able to hang onto her self awareness while Will was taking her. Someday. Not today. She used her magic and grabbed hold of his self control out of habit, not intention. He groaned as he felt the change.

"Don't stop," she told him, arching her back and wrapping her arms around him a little tighter.

He didn't. He held her at that near helpless angle and worked his hips against her in deep, fast thrusts that left her gasping. She had talked to people who weren't succubi and who had at least as much sex as she did if not more. Most of them talked of the moment when they got bored with it. When it was a physical act that didn't mean anything. Tessa could get there in her mind but her body never did.

Pleasure came easily to her. Even when the partner wasn’t doing much, her body could still have a good time. Not that that was a concern with Will. He was doing a fantastic job. He was amazing.

Strong and intent but not as rough as last time and she didn't hold him as tightly. Tessa was too busy putting her attention on being as affectionate as he was. She wasn't affectionate. She didn't kiss or cuddle. She took what she needed and left. Being near Will was like taking a crash course in affection. Smiles and kisses and hands in her hair. It was a test, an experiment. She let her body enjoy itself while she played with his hair and smiled at him every time he kissed her.

She wasn't controlling him and he came first. His body arched and his hips slammed forward in a few sharp thrusts and then he stopped. It took her by surprise. He collapsed into her, pinning her to the wall but leaving her close but unsatisfied. She grabbed his hand and pulled it into place and started whispering orders into his ear.

"Like this?" he asked.

"Harder," she said.

He held her close, his hips sliding back so his cock wasn't inside her anymore but his fingers were there, rubbing hard circles against sensitive skin. She gasped and squirmed and held him tight as he smiled. Will kept nuzzling her neck, his body language was lazy, slow and happy. His fingers were working hard and fast against her but the rest of him just leaned in and held her tight. He kissed her neck as he inched her towards the slow building orgasm.

It took longer than she would usually have been willing to put up with but he had her pinned against the wall, her cheek was against his neck and she was so aware of his breathing and his heart beat and his nearness that she didn't care.

"Come on then," Will said softly. His voice was so content and happy and as lazy as his body as he whispered in her ear.

"Make me," she muttered.

He slipped two fingers inside her and kept his thumb on the sensitive bit. He waited for her to react before picked up speed. Fingers thrusting, thumb rubbing, her body giving in almost immediately. She moaned. Will didn't stop until she cried out and tried to squirm away from him. He held onto her. Pulled her back into a hug and tilted her face up to kiss as he set her back on her feet.

"You're a little pink, were you exerting yourself?" he asked her brushing his still wet fingers along her cheek and making her jerk away and rub it away with her sleeve.

He looked like he was going to start apologizing and backing away so she leaned up and kissed him, "Just a little," she said and then caught his hand by the wrist and lifted his hand. She made sure he was watching her as she took his fingers in her mouth and licked everything off. His arousal spiked around her. A little trill of something that might have been surprise but might have been disgust shot through it. She didn't stop, she licked his fingers clean and then dropped down to do the same for his cock before she tucked it back into his trousers and redid the buttons.

He watched her with a partially open mouth and flushed cheeks.

"Your patrol route takes you to the river, doesn't it?" she said.

"We should go home," he said.

Tessa laughed but didn't argue. She helped him fix the last of his clothing and he helped her fix hers and they left London to it's own devices and headed back toward the Institute.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One paragraph demon hunting, 1000+ words of smut, that's the kind of story this is


	9. Curiosity and Boundaries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think this is the longest chapter so far

“Would you mind if I went to see Jem?” Tessa asked.

“Will you come back?” Will asked.

“I’ll spend the night with you if you want me to, I just want to see how he’s doing,” she said.

Will led her to Jem’s room and she stopped him before they went inside. She shook her head at Will. She needed to talk to Jem without the charged energy of their relationship filling the room. If Will was in the room, Jem would be thinking about him and only him and Tessa wanted his undivided attention. She tucked a piece of ribbon off her dress into Will’s pocket and shooed him away do do whatever he needed to do when he came back from a hunt.

Tessa crossed the room to sit down in the chair across from Jem. She could see the flicker of awareness in his aura as she entered but he didn't respond to her. He was wrapped up in a robe and blanket, curled up deep in a plush chair that made him look smaller than he was. He looked ethereal. Fragile. A creature spun of glass and snow. Silver and sparkling but so delicate that he would break if the wind changed direction. He was staring at the fire and even the reflection of the flames couldn't warm his complexion.

"How are you?" she asked.

"Sitting," he said.

"I will leave if you ask me to," she said more in response to his tone than the word.

"You don't have to leave," he said.

Tessa stood from the chair and walked away.

“Truly,” he said, “I don’t want you to leave.”

She didn’t respond. She went to find a book on his shelves. Some of the books were in Chinese, some of them were folders of music and not volumes of literature at all, some of them were about the kind of history and spell work that the Shadowhunters considered important to study. His collection of fiction and poetry was small but she found something she liked, plucked it off the shelf and returned to sit across from him again.

“I have no intention of leaving,” she said.

She curled up, kicking off her shoes and tucking her feet up under her. Her dress was still in a little bit of disarray from everything she had done with Will and her hair had to be worse. She pretended not to care as she paged through the book to find a part she liked. He was quiet. She was going to wait him out. He could make the first move if he wanted to.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

"I'm trying to make sense of you, Mr. Carstairs," she said. "Also I like this volume and haven't had a chance to reread it recently."

He went silent again, sitting and staring into the fire. Tessa kept her eyes on the book but her attention was on him. The exact shade of his aura, the rhythm of his breathing, the way his attention strayed to her before he dragged it away. She would have given up on anyone else if they’d been so uncomfortable in their interest. But. He fascinated her and she wanted Will so badly that she was willing to endure this strange detente with Jem. Jem said he wanted this but he didn't really. Not the way she expected people to. He was curious and couldn’t put down his plan but he wasn’t interested the way that her targets usually were.

"Will let you in," Jem said.

"He did. He tells me that you play the fiddle," she said.

"Violin."

"Is there a difference?"

"No, just the kind of music one might expect," he said.

"Would you play for me?" Tessa asked.

"I'm barely strong enough to sit up straight, I couldn't hold the instrument," he said.

"I could change that," she said.

He nodded but said nothing. An acknowledgment of what she had said, of the offer. Not a request. Tessa wanted him to ask for it.

Tessa let the silence stretch but only for a moment.

"You got your only free ride that first time, if you want it again, you're going to have to ask for it," she said. "I won't force you. I won't let you make me the villain in this."

"You're not a villain," he said.

"No, I'm not."

Jem looked at her then. At her. Not in her direction but at her. He met her eye and held her gaze for the first time since they had met. She didn't look away. He was beautiful and despite all that fragility, she couldn't forget that strength inside him. His eyes were silver and the color could have been cold but it wasn't. There was too much emotion behind his expression for his look to be cold.

She wanted him.

She wanted to win him over and change his mind and make him love her.

She looked away as that realization hit her, turning her eyes back to the words on the page. He didn't look away. She didn't need to meet his eye. She could tell. His aura, the turn of his shoulders, the little edges and corners of his body language.

"Maybe I'm making a terrible choice," he said.

Tessa looked up again.

"You are."

"No reassurances?"

"It is a terrible choice. A life of submission or a short walk to the grave. Neither are good choices. You don't have a better option. You can spend your existence tied to my appetite and my needs, you could spend it dependent on blood and violence or you could let it come to an end. Three choices. None of them perfect. None of them even very good. You haven't been given a better option."

"I could join the Silent Brothers. I could give up my mind and body but keep my soul."

"Four choices, then. But that last one isn't better than the others.”

"No, it's not."

Tessa waited.

His eyes cast around the room for a moment before he went back to looking at the fire. Will wasn’t there. Will wasn’t there to tip the scales or ease the way or offer some snappy comment to break the tightening mood. Tessa settled back against the cushions and forced her body to relax. It wasn’t going to fix the issue of the tense mood but it was going to annoy him a little. She wanted him to push this over. To order her out or admit to something. Anything. She hated not being able to understand him.

His arousal was buried under so many other thoughts that she wasn’t even sure if it was there and the rest of it was not her specialty. It could be. She had the magic for it. She could learn to manipulate anger and sadness the same way that she manipulated sex but she never had. She needed sex to live. She didn’t need to mess with anyone’s other emotions to survive. So she didn’t try and now, centuries in, she could still barely read more complex emotions.

Jem was a storm of feelings.

Emotion flickered over his aura though his face was calm. Placid. He looked placid and peaceful. She caught flashes of fear and that curiosity. Anger and something that might have been resolve but then it would fade again. He was fascinating. She stopped pretending to read and watched him openly.

Her attention drew his eyes back.

"I don't know what to ask for," he said.

Tessa blinked. Her heart skittered sideways in her chest but the only outward sign was that slow blink.

“Do you want me?” she asked.

A long pause before he looked away from her and said, “Yes,” in a very soft voice.

“Really?”

Another long pause. “If we’re doing something permanent, some spell, I’d like, that is, I’d rather that Will was here.”

“We can work up to that. I’m not in any rush and you needn’t be either,” she said. "You could pleasure me or I could pleasure you, either would work. We need to draw the magic out before I can do anything useful with it. Intense arousal without any contact will work as well but you're not easy enough to manipulate for that.”

"Was Will?"

"Easy to manipulate?"

"Yes."

"Not exactly. Will wants it. I don’t need manipulate him. Just a little bit of suggestion. I can play with Will's arousal and leave the choices up to him. I pushed his desire into the right place and he made the choices on his own. I could do the same with you but I think that you would resent it whereas he found entertaining.”

"Try me," he said.

Tessa closed the book and leaned forward over her knees. It was a masculine position. A lady wouldn't lean in like this but it pulled Jem's attention. She settled with her elbows on her knees and her eyes on him and he looked back at her. She waited but he didn't shy away or take back the offer so she held out a hand.

The hesitation was tiny before he put his hand in hers.

She pushed a little magic into him and he shuddered. The physical reaction was minimal. A little tightening through his shoulders but nothing more. The reaction in his aura was intense. The buttery yellow burned and then cleared to a sharp golden colour. His breathing matched the change. Deep and a bit laboured. His eyes held on hers and she gave him her softest look.

She hadn’t given him much. Tessa had been doing well right up to that point. She had been covering her fascination with this boy right up to the point that his self control fell apart. It had been a nudge. He took it like a punch to the face. His expression shifted nd he stared at her with wide eyes. She did not take her hand back. She should have but she wanted to hold onto this.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"That was... something," he said.

"You're sensitive, I over shot," she said. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he said but his breathing wasn't even.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said.

She braced herself for dismissal and rejection and being asked to leave but those three words came out as curious and a bit overwhelmed. Soft. This was the softest that she had ever seen this boy. He was uncomfortable and curious. He had been uncomfortable and resentful the first time but this was all curiosity and desire. The desire wasn’t fading. She’d sparked it but he was the one burning now. He was beautiful when he was distrustful and distant. He was something else entirely when he was watching her like this.

"Can I pleasure you? Nothing permanent, just something physical," she said.

He held her gaze and he was unreadable. His aura hadn't settled back to normal and the way he held his shoulders was uneasy but his expression was open and wanting. She bit her tongue until the pain cleared her head a little. Tessa left it at an offer. She did not push any more magic on him, she did not make any other offers. She just gave him a smile and waited.

Finally he nodded.

It was a tiny movement but his aura had cleared enough for her to believe that it came from him and not just from his arousal.

She went to lock the door before she came to kneel between his feet and carefully unwrap his body. The blanket and the robes He shifted his knees apart for her but otherwise watched her like he didn't understand what was happening.

The candy scent of his skin skewed bitter and acrid but she was so aroused that she didn't care. She knelt between his feet and fed him a little more magic as she pulled his cock free of his trousers. A tiny whisper of magic that he didn’t need but she wanted to him over react to it again.

His breathing was heavy and deep and she paused to rub his stomach and stroke him with her hand and wait. She thought that he might not settle but he did. The arousal didn’t settle but he leaned back and nodded again. She was waiting for recoil and horror but it didn’t come. He watched her and his breathing evened out as she knelt there between his knees and stroked his cock in one hand while she watched his face.

He got hard effortlessly. Long and perfect. His skin was smooth, every detail was mouthwatering. Silver hair and slightly thicker nearer his body. Perfect. She held her own urges in check until the slow stroking of her hand made him murmur and squirm, then she leaned down and took him in her mouth. Slowly. Everything she did was slow and drawn out.

He was going to bolt on her.

Not now. Not while the arousal was high and his eyes were locked on her. Later. Later he would come back down and think his way through this and make some other terrible choice. He had other options. He wasn’t going to choose her. So she would draw out these moments that he did give her. Enjoy them. Make sure that he enjoyed them too.

A long slow drag of her tongue. Another. Then again. Until he moaned and his hips shifted and he had to grab hold of the arms of the chair to keep from reacting farther. She backed off entirely once he'd shifted his hips up towards her in a little thrust of need. She rubbed his thighs, his stomach, the hair at the very base of his cock, but not the cock.

"I thought," he said.

"What did you want?" she asked.

She was forcing his hand. She was a monster but he wanted her so much more than he was willing to admit and she was too greedy to let that pass. He shifted and squeezed his eyes shut. His cock lay hard and flushed and perfect against his belly. Untouched. It was starting to seep with his arousal. His need. The need he didn’t want to admit to.

Ask me for it.

She didn't say that but she waited for it.

"What you are?" he asked.

Nonsense. It was nonsense.

She didn't stop rubbing his stomach, letting her fingers brush the head of his cock, leaning in so her cheek touched the shaft, pausing to trace the shape of him for just a feathery moment before her hand moved on to his thighs. He was uncomfortable. Needy. Wanting. Too much a virgin to know what he needed.

"Tell me what you want, baby," she said.

"Please," he answered her.

"Do you want my hands or my mouth?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Be demanding, Mr. Carstairs, ask for something," she said.

"I don't know what to ask for," he said.

"Anything. I want to make you happy," she said.

A long painful pause where she went still because she was sure that she had pushed him too far and he was about to kick her out. He looked down at her. Above the waist, he was dressed. He was wearing pajamas and a dressing gown but he was dressed. Her palm lay abandoned on his stomach below his hiked up shirt. She left it there as she waited for him to make this decision. No more magic. No pushing at this point. It would be too easy. She could make him do anything she wanted with the right press of magic but that would ruin it. She wanted him to choose this.

You can lead a horse to water, you can't make him drink.

"Touch me?" he asked.

Tessa smiled at him and nodded.

Soft and slow. Just her hand to start with and then her mouth. She wanted a taste of him. He didn't taste as much like sugar as he smelled but that didn't make him any less sweet. She watched him, waiting for the point that she pushed him too far but it didn't come. Once he'd asked for it, he didn't fight it any longer, he lay back and closed his eyes and panted for her as she sucked on is cock.

He was long and she slid down the length of him slowly. Then back up, sucking hard enough to make him moan. Down again. Watching him. Always watching him. He kept his eyes shut but he didn't flinch. She pulled his arousal into herself on instinct before she cut it off. He was still too weak to feed on. She wanted to swallow him down and claim him as her own but he wasn't strong enough to give up that much of his own power to her.

She forced herself past her instincts and opened the channel the other way. She cracked open her own power and let it flow out into the mess of magic and arousal that swirled around them both. It took him a long time to latch onto it but once did, his body drew her in like a riptide.

She could have cut him off. But she didn't.

She raced him instead. One of them would reach the edge of their self control before the other. Once she broke skin on skin contact with him, the power exchange would be cut short. Alternately, once he came, she would be able to regain control over the rampaging connection.

His self control was frustratingly better than Will's and he didn't want to come. An orgasm was a way of admitting of how much he liked it and he wasn't ready for that. Tessa stopped going easy on him. His self control might be good but he was still a virgin and she was better with her mouth than he was prepared for.

He came in a rush in her mouth. His back arched. One of his hands tightened into a fist on the arm of the chair and he'd taken enough power from her that he cracked the wood as he clenched down. The other hand was in her hair. That took her by surprise. She hadn't realized he was touching her until she tried to move and he kept her held tight.

Shadowhunter boys were going to kill her.

She was going to let them destroy her because she liked this too much. Too much. She should have wrenched back control, instead he was using the connection to pull power from her like a crack in a dam. Tessa yanked herself back, breaking physical contact in a rush of self preservation. Jem was panting, collapsed against the chair, his hair a little damp across his forehead and his mouth open.

Vulnerable. He looked so damn soft and vulnerable and he'd almost drained her. They were definitely going to destroy her.

"That was amazing," he whispered.

He reached for her and she pulled back, grabbing his hand and holding it between hers because it was easier to control the connection if it was just her hands. He linked his fingers with hers and held on. Sweet. It was cute. Gentle and kind. She squeezed back and stared up at him. She was kneeling on the floor, breathing hard, her mouth still open and her lips still wet. She shook her head and licked her lips.

Bad job.

Bad warlock.

Letting someone in past your defenses was a cardinal sin.

She knew that. She didn't feel any guilt about it though. A little bit of fear but not enough to make her run. He didn't scare her. Jem finally started to blink his eyes open. His cock was still half hard, lying wet and abandoned on his belly and she reached out to stroke it. He flinched. Too sensitive. She pulled her hand back. He was holding onto her other hand and he pulled her in. She took the invitation to climb up into his lap and press her magic against him. His power was frail and injured by the illness but it was there, buried beneath everything else and she wanted to throw everything into it.

“We could do that again,” she whispered.

“I don’t think I can,” he said.

“A little bit of a rest first?”

He laughed. Soft and heavy and low. She hadn’t even seen him smile before. He turned to look at her and she traced the shape of his smile. She was draped across his lap and even though she’d promised Will she would spend the night with him, she did not want to get up. She wanted to stay here and see what this boy was like once his boundaries were down.

“You have a beautiful smile,” she told him which made him grin again. A little bit more carefree. He was settling in. The power he’d taken from her was making him stronger. More than that, he was less nervous with her. More open in his curiosity. He wasn’t hiding his desire away from her.

“Are you offering to let me take you to bed?” he asked.

“I’m asking, it is your bed after all,” she said.

She didn't have time to drag him up out of the chair and curl up with him in bed. Someone else knocked on the door. Tessa barely had time to tuck his clothes back into place and disentangle herself from his hands before the woman was trying the door. Tessa closed herself into the closet and flicked her wrist to undo the lock before that maid could get suspicious. As soon as it clicked over, she was barging into the room. That was unfair. She was sweet and polite and deeply committed to making sure that Jem was cared for properly. She got Jem tucked back into bed amid cushions and with offers of medicine before finally leaving him sleeping.

He dozed off fast. He was stronger after everything they’d done but not by much. Tessa watched the whole production of fussing and tea and friendly conversation from the closet. Jem was nice. Jem talked to the girl while his attention strayed over and over to where Tessa was hiding. But he still fell asleep before she left.

The urge to climb into bed beside him was impossibly strong. Tessa wanted to curl up beside Jem and stay there but that would mean getting caught and getting caught was bad for everyone so she abandoned him and threw her magic wide. She had left Will something she owned which made it very easy to track him down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did my Jessa-Shipper colors come out in this chapter?
> 
> Yeah. Y'know. Just a tiny bit. 
> 
> Itsy bitsy bit.


	10. Spending the Night

The Institute was dark and drafty and huge. Tessa had magic to follow so she knew that she wouldn't get lost but the entire building and the very old magics it was soaked in were making her nervous. Getting caught probably meant getting killed. Will had never mentioned being afraid of whoever was head of the Institute, but finding a warlock slinking around their halls wasn't something Shadowhunters approved of. She was dragging some of their most valuable and vulnerable warriors down into the depths of depravity. Even a kind and respectable Nephilim wouldn't approve of that.

She made it through the Institute without incident and pushed through the a heavy oak door to find Will sitting in a chair with his feet up and a book in his hand. He looked annoyed. He looked up at her and his expression only softened the tiniest fraction. She closed the door and locked it.

"Waiting for something?" she asked him with a smile.

"You were gone a long time," he said.

"I got distracted," she admitted.

She crossed the room and took his book out of his hand. He let her. No argument or pouting. She climbed up onto his lap and settled with a knee on either side of his hips. He didn't say a word. He reached up and started to unwind the pins in her hair and run his fingers through it to shake out the worst of the snarls. She let her plans of seduction fall aside as he pulled her a little closer and untangled her hair. Between the demon fight, the sex, and the way Jem had held her head down in his lap, her hair was a disaster. It was nice to have someone fuss with it.

Unexpected.

Will kept giving her intimacies that she didn't expect. He kept worming into her emotions with these soft little gestures. For someone who took such joy in killing things, he was kind. He had probably been one of those little boys that made uncles worry they were too soft and gentle. She watched the little smile on his face and he glanced back at her as he worked to smooth out a tangled curl.

"Is Jem alright?"

"I wore him out but he'll wake up stronger than he was, the magic needs time to settle," she said.

Will laughed, "What did you do to him?"

"Sucked his cock," she said tilting her head so Will could reach the pins at the back.

He went still. "Really? He let you do that?"

"Your sweet boy isn't as innocent as he looks," she said then shook her head with a little laugh. "No, he is, he's just that innocent but he is more intense than expected. I gave him a lot more than I wanted to."

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Tessa."

"He wore me out, he took a lot more power than I should have let him have. It was my fault. He didn't know what he was doing. I didn't want to stop touching him and he was starving. The drug has taken so much from him and so he pulled hard," she said.

"What do you need?" he asked.

"To rest," she said.

"Dressed or not?"

"Whichever you prefer," she said. She shifted her hips, settling herself tighter against his body. "Sleep will help, sex will help, I'll let you choose."

"I want you under me, all the clothing gone, mine for the rest of the night," he said.

The spark of jealousy shot through him when he admitted it aloud. He'd been hiding it so deep, he probably hadn't realized that he was hiding it at all. Tessa drew back a little, sitting back on his knees so their hips weren't pressed together. The jealousy spiked again. Tessa should have known better but a smile slipped out. He had one hand in her hair and the other rested on her leg and they both tightened a little. Defensive now, as well as jealous. It was not something she should have found adorable. She did.

She hesitated before she took his wrist and placed his palm on her chest above the decolletage of her dress and said, "I'm yours, you take me however you want."

There was probably an etiquette book out there somewhere that suggested that using a boy's jealousy against him was wrong. Tessa had read a lot of books in her life but never that one. She could have calmed that spark of jealousy down with either magic or words but instead she left it burning. He was going to be possessive with her if she let him continue like this and dear lord did she want that. She could have fanned the jealousy but that would have been cruel. The boy had a fragile heart and didn’t deserve to be teased.

"I want you under me,” he said again, then added, “No magic.”

"Anything you want, sir," she said with a grin and a little laugh.

He raised his eyebrows at her and his hands paused where they rested on her thighs, just above her knees. He squeezed slightly and she nearly fell to pieces on that alone.

"You out rank me, not only because you're Nephilim but your mother is part of some important family, isn't she? Aren't the British very concerned with that?" she said.

She was teasing him. He was a country lord on his mother's side. Something that barely ranked but the British did care. Tessa’s father might have been a merchant member of a fringe religion with enough coin to buy himself passage on a ship but Tessa herself had been born in a colony. She did not rank on any scale the British aristocracy cared to play with. It had been a point of concern once, a long time ago, these days it barely ranked.

"You're going to call me sir?" he asked.

She let her grin slip wider, not at all respectful and her voice lilted into sarcasm when she said, "Yes, sir."

Baiting men strong enough to tear you to pieces with their fingertips was probably a bad choice but he didn’t scare her and he needed something to keep his mind off the jealousy. She wanted him jealous enough to be a bit demanding in bed not so jealous that he got angry. Will caught her around the waist. Just his hands. He lifted her and placed her on her feet. She gasped in surprise. He held onto her and stood up so they were nose to nose. Tessa laughed and tilted her head up to bump her nose against his. He laughed back. Deep and dark and wanting.

They were going to destroy her.

Either of them alone was more than she could handle.

Will backed her up towards the bed and she let him have control. She let him pull off her clothing in the order that he saw fit. He stripped her naked before they made it to the bed. She bit her lip and forced herself to stay still as he looked her over. She hadn't let him have control before. This was new and instincts she had spent decades and decades honing recoiled in horror at the possibility of being left vulnerable. She forced her self preservation back a few steps and let him have it. He was young and sweet and honest. He wouldn't hurt her.

His hands came up to cup her hips and then slide up over her ribs to her breasts. He squeezed too hard and she let out a soft sound. He wouldn't try to hurt her. He wasn't violent. She was still going to wake up with bruises. She was looking forward to them. She was wrong to assume he wouldn’t hurt her because he was too sweet to be violent. He wasn’t violent but he was going to hurt her and she wanted him to do it.

Being held down with her back flat to the mattress and her boundaries in all the wrong places was an experience that Tessa was never going to forget. He was heavy and demanding. He was strong enough to take whatever he wanted and kind enough to whisper requests against her throat. He kept stroking her hair. His fingers ran back through it from her temple to the back of her neck and then down to the ends of the strands.   
  
Then he slid inside her.

She made a mental note to teach the boy how to warm someone up properly.

She took him with no more than a gasp. She was a creature designed for sex and everything she’d done with Jem and the time they’d spent together earlier were enough that she was wet and ready for this. He was still too big to be pushing himself into people without proper introductions. She moaned as he settled against her. His weight pushed him in to the hilt and that made her ache. Her head fell back and he pulled out and pushed in again. She moaned again. He liked that. She hoped she would remember that in the morning. She wanted to take notes about what he liked, what he demanded when she gave him the chance to demand it.

He settled in close. His hips pressed in against hers. His arms around her waist. His mouth against her throat. He settled in close and he fucked her hard. He held her in place with all that strength as he thrust his hips against her. Possessive and demanding, the jealousy was just a tiny spark but it was fading fast. The sex wasn't artful but it was effective.

Tessa moaned again and it slipped out without her deciding to let it.

"Did you like that?" he asked as his hips slid home again and she cried out for him again.

He was close to perfect. His intensity. His weight. His hands and his skin and the tone of his voice. She grabbed his hips and pulled them into a different position so each thrust hit at a different angle. She sighed as he found the way to take her like that. It was a lower angle, harder for him, but he didn't let that stop him. She exhaled as he pulled out and then moaned as he slid back in.

"Don't stop," she whispered in his ear.

He laughed and didn't slow down.

He held her hand. Laced their fingers together and held it agaisnt the pile of pillows. He was strong enough that holding her hand above her head kept it trapped. She wasn't trying to pull away but knowing that he could make it impossible was enough to make her breathe a little harder. His other arm was around her waist as he kissed and licked his way along her throat. She struggled just to force him to hold her down. His hands tightened. His hips pressed in. He pulled back and frowned at her.

"This is perfect," she said.

He frowned and thrust his hips down against her hard. She gasped. He found the angle she had put him in before and started to work himself against her hard and fast. He watched her while he did it. Keeping her eyes open got hard. He was hitting the right spot and he was holding on with all his jealous strength and it was intense. Over and over. In and out. He pulled sounds from her that she didn't want to stop and couldn't even remember if it was possible to stop.

She got lost in it. He was heavy and warm and his hands wandered over her body until it felt like he was everywhere. As the little spark of jealousy burned out, the possessiveness that took its place wrapped her up tight. Bodies were easy, emotions were not.

He came first, again and then time didn’t need any orders or instructions to get his hand in the right place and bring her with him. She lay there, panting against his neck as he wrapped her up and kissed her temple.

“I wasn’t prepared to spend the night, I didn’t bring a night gown,” she said with a little laugh as she stared up at the ceiling.

“I can probably find you something,” he said starting to pull away. She grabbed hold of him and yanked him back down against her body. She wasn’t ready to give up the closeness yet. She wanted his body against hers. He collapsed back down and rested his head on her shoulder like he felt the same way.

“This jealousy, the jealousy that you are pretending not to have,” Tessa pulled him back in and took a turn being the one to try and smooth out the other’s hair, he let her.

“I’m not jealous,” he said.

“Of course, you aren’t,” she said. “I want you to take a moment and make sure that the jealousy that is certainly not there, doesn’t become an issue between the two of you. If you want to fight with me, that’s fine but don’t go fighting with him over this. I’m not worth that.”

“You are worth it,” he said leaning over and kissing the side of her face. “I would never fight with Jem over this.”

“Would you fight with me?” she asked.

Tessa laughed and stretched to settle in a little closer to him while they talked. Her body was relaxed and warm and she liked the way that Will was half lying on her with their legs tangled together. She needed a bath. There was evidence of sex all over her. It didn’t make her feel any less content and comfortable to be curled up with him.

“I would forgive you anything,” Will said with his lips against her hair, “Except breaking his heart.”

“His heart isn’t on offer, William. You might like me, but he only tolerates me,” she said.

“Jem doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve. He’s kind to everyone so people often assume he likes them more than he does or that there is no real sentiment in it but they’re wrong. In both cases, usually. Jem feels deeply and cares intensely but he doesn’t often put it into words. He hasn’t said what he feels for you but he let you touch him which is far more than I was expecting,” Will said.

“You think he’ll back out of the agreement?” Tessa asked.

Will shrugged, “No. He’ll follow through with this damned ridiculous idea because he’s so stubborn we could be standing on the fields of Armageddon and he’d still keep up his practice schedules. I worried that he would regret it but I think he’ll come through it with you.”

“Us,” she said.

“What?”

“Us, you and me. That boy needs you as deeply as you need him, Mr. Herondale. Don’t ever doubt that.”

Will laughed and rolled back into her. He pulled her in so he could press his face to her neck and she lay there, watching the ceiling as he settled and then dozed off, still tucked in around her like a heavy blanket. She ran her fingers through his curls and slowly willed herself to relax and finally fall asleep as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My headcanons for the boys and jealousy are all over the map across the different stories I have written but I think this reaction is the closest to canon: Will is intensely jealous but just as intensely committed to putting it to the side in the interest of keeping Jem happy and content.


	11. A Ball

Tessa turned the paper in her hands a few times and just smiled at it. William Herondale was taking his courting very seriously and she was delighted by it. He was beautiful and he had those strong hands and he wanted to impress her. The invitation was for a charity ball being held in another part of town but it wouldn't be too difficult to get to, she wasn't sure how he had managed to get invitations because it was a mundane event but she wasn't going to question him on it. He'd written a little scrap of poetry on the back before sending it off to her. She read it again before setting the paper on the table and going to look at the things she had to wear.

The gown left her shoulders bare and the way it gathered back into a bustle made her look alarmingly tall. The hoop skirts of the previous decade’s fashion craze had made it easier to hide the fact that she was taller than many men until they got close enough to stand beside her. Sometimes that had seemed like a good idea but tonight she found that she liked her height. She'd had to hire someone in a rush to do her hair. There was some things that simply couldn't be done on one's own. The dress was pink and white and the girl she'd found to help her had done her hair up with pink flowers they'd found at the market. Tessa overpaid her and sent her away with a basket of food.

The hall where the ball was held wasn't particularly grand. It was nice enough and the host had done an excellent job of laying out the tables and the dance floor. Tessa paused inside the door to look out over the dancing couples. Everyone was dressed very respectably. It was the type of event that was right on the cusp of high society. The people here members of polite society but not the sort that would be able to command the attention of royalty. There were probably a few members of Parliament on the invite list but they would be the most illustrious people in attendance.

Tessa let out a sigh of relief. She was from the wrong era and the wrong class. The intense manners and rules of high society were something that she barely understood. Oh, she knew enough to avoid embarrassing herself but it was a struggle. She had been raised on a farm in nearly empty countryside. Her family and community had their own strict rules but they were very different from what would be expected here. This dress would be considered ostentatious and a bit obscene by the people who raised her and it was hardly the most elaborate one on display.

"I'm so glad you came."

Tessa pulled herself back from her thoughts and turned to look at Will. He was flanked by a slightly uncomfortable Jem wearing a black suit and dark circles under his eyes. Tessa smiled at them. Men's fashions were limited in color and tailoring and so they hadn't necessarily come dressed as a set on purpose but they stood close together and were nearly exactly the same height and looked like they'd been designed together. Tessa couldn't help herself from smiling as she looked them over.

Tessa had never seen Jem standing and was surprised that he was so tall. He had better color than he had had the last time she'd seen him. He was handsome. It had been obscured by his mood and his frailty the last time but now she took a moment to just appreciate it. The details she'd been fascinated by while he slept fit together well. Angular but with a soft mouth and expressive eyes that kept him from looking severe.

"Good evening," she said.

He returned the greeting but there was something uncomfortable in the way he held himself and he was moving with the help of a carved cane. He didn't ask for help as they made their way down the stairs and into the main room but Will's attention stayed locked on him in case he stumbled. He didn't. Slow and steady and with just a flicker of pain in his aura but nothing more. Will left them to go fetch refreshments.

"This is lovely," Tessa said.

"I've never been to an event like this," Jem admitted.

"I rarely have either, I still think it's lovely," she said.

"You look the part better than I do," he said.

"You look perfect," she told him turning to look at him again.

His gaze skated away from her and she could see something like embarrassment curling in his aura. She reached out just the tiniest bit of magic and nudged it. She dealt with sex and arousal so shifting his confidence around was well outside her abilities but there was an emotion that came with knowing that your partner was completely interested in you that she could press up against his nerves. He looked up at her and she let a little of it show in her face too. Just enough to let him know that she meant it. She got a brief, shy smile before Will arrived and gave Jem a convenient reason to put his attention somewhere else.

"For the lady," Will said holding out a glass to her.

"I most certainly am not but thank you," she said.

Jem laughed. Just a tiny fraction of a sound. Her heart skittered a little at it. There could have been cruelty in that laugh but she could see nothing but amusement in him. He met her eye and the smile was still there.

"Do Shadowhunters have classes?" Tessa asked.

"Not really, no," Will said.

"He's a gentleman by mundane terms," Jem said.

"Disinherited runaway," Will said.

"You're mother is a duchess isn't she?"

"By the Angel, no, do you know anything about mundane society?"

Jem was smiling and just shook his head.

"Baroness," Will said.

"Ah yes, quite different."

"I can hear that sarcasm, Carstairs," Will said.

Tessa was hardly an expert on land titles in England but she knew enough to know that Baron was a far lesser title than Duke or Duchess but it was still a little surprising to know that Will had some claim to mundane high society. She had kept her head down among the lower classes where people were more likely to overlook unaccompanied young women. That Jem knew nothing of English high society made Tessa wonder at his upbringing. The Shadowhunters had their own rules and always had but it was still interesting that he knew nothing of this. Rank mattered to the English so much.

Will was back on his mission of being charming and not bringing up the nature of their little agreement. Jem was more distant than he was but polite and agreeable and he smiled more easily as the night continued. They were glamoured just enough to keep other people away. The party was an excuse, a back drop and Tessa wove the glamour to make sure no one bothered them unless they invited the attention themselves.

Will took her out to the dance floor. Dancing was nice. She didn’t know all the steps but the glamour kept them separate enough that it didn’t matter. It was almost like being children, playing at being respectable adults. Will laughed and talked, he pulled her in close and paid compliments.

He also stumbled into a man a little older than he was and accidentally started a conversation which had him being introduced to someone's daughter while Tessa hid comfortably behind her still intact glamour and smirked at him. She left him to his new friends and went to find Jem who had disappeared from the table and gone to sit outside.

"Not a dancer?" she asked.

"No," he said.

"Can I bring you anything?" she asked but she didn't ask him how he was feeling. There was pain in his aura and in the way he held his cane. She came to lean against the railing that he was sitting on. He was breathing slowly. Controlled. He was suffering but pretending he wasn’t.

"I had thought that I was prepared for my death," he said in a soft voice.

"No one is ever truly prepared for death."

"Says the immortal girl."

"I may not age but I have seen more death than you have, Shadowhunter," she said with a little smile.

"My parents were killed in front of me when I was a child and I have been dying ever since. I may not have seen as many people die as you have but I have lived closer to death than most."

Tessa nodded. "I don't dispute that."

He smiled again. Sad and small.

"You came here to spend a night in the world, not to see me. You're changing your mind."

Jem looked away from her.

"Immortality is not something I ever wanted," he said. "I had once promised myself that I would not be driven by vengeance. I wanted to live and live as well as possible and to go peacefully when my time came.”

He went still. He didn’t fuss. His hands were curled around his cane but he didn’t trace the carvings or tap it. He just held it and looked back at the ballroom full of happy mundanes.

"I'm not going to report you to anyone for questioning that," she said in response to the stretching silence. He looked at her and frowned a little. "I lived not far from where they burned all the witches in Salem. They weren't witches. They didn't deserve it but I was. I did have evil magic. I could tempt good people to wickedness. It was a lie when they executed those people but I heard it all. All the reasons that it was right to burn a witch, to hang a witch, to drown a witch. I could have turned myself in, admitted to being evil and let justice be delivered. I could have ended my own life and saved the world from having one more witch in it."

"You aren't a witch," Jem started but she waved him off.

"The point, is that I was told, from the time I was very young, that things like me should die. I believed that. I believed that the world would be better without me in it," she faltered, worrying that she had lost the thread.

"The world isn't worse for having you in it," he said in the tone of a promise.

"I wanted to live," she said.

He watched her, that little frown line between his eyebrows and those silver eyes locked on hers. The light coming out from the party lit his face in shadows and the dark suit made him look like he had been painted in black and white or he was a tintype come to life. He was beautiful and she let herself settle into the protectiveness that rose up in her chest.

"There's no shame in wanting to live. Not for a little girl who had discovered she was a monster or for a young man facing a death come too soon," she said.

He dropped his eyes and smiled but stayed silent.

"You can take this and have another year, another twenty years, you can borrow two thousand but you aren't required to. It comes at a price, this extension of life but we are all tied to other people in one way or another," she told him. "I won't question you if you decide this isn't a price you're willing to pay but don't decide against your own desires simply because someone else would call you a witch."

"Maybe I am a witch," he said with a smile.

"Well, come cast a spell and lead me into wickedness," Tessa said.

She reached out and waited for him to put his hand in hers before she pushed magic into him. The connection wasn't right for her to give him power, this was just the usual kind of spell. Pain relief. It wouldn't last a long time but it would last long enough for her to coax him out onto the dance floor with her. He leaned on the cane as he stood but walked smoothly beside her back into the ballroom.

 


	12. Make a Choice

****

As the party ended and the mundanes started drifting away, Tessa looped an arm around Will's waist and lay her cheek against his chest as she watched them. People gathered their things and put on their cloaks and it was all so normal. It had been a long time since Tessa had had an evening that felt normal.

He smiled down at her and she felt his happiness rather than saw it. Jem came to join them a moment later and he looked drawn and pale but there still a contentment in him. Will was feeling smug that his party invitation had gone over well but Tessa suspected that Jem’s comfort came from being a piece of a crowd like this. His separation from the mundane world was different from hers but he felt it too. She reached out and flattened her palm against the center of his chest, just above the gray waistcoat he was wearing under the black jacket. She didn't mean anything by it, she just wanted to touch him.

"This was lovely," she said.

"We're going to need to hire a carriage," Jem said.

"I'm closer than your Institute, you can come home with me," she said with a smile.

She hooked her fingers in between the buttons on Jem's waistcoat and pulled a little. He let himself be drawn a step closer. His lips twitched. The glamours kept them invisible but his attention still flicked up to see if anyone was watching and a little bit of a blush climbed his cheeks. His attention slipped from her and caught on Will before sliding back again. Silver wasn't a colour she had ever thought of as warm but his expression was as warm as firelight in the depth of winter.

Every time his attention caught on Will, Tessa had to bite her lip to keep herself from making an inappropriate suggestion about sharing Will between them. Her expression was probably making that suggestion but she didn't think Jem would appreciate her articulating it. He was nervous. Content but not quite comfortable. Still. Maybe always. Maybe he'd never be comfortable with all of this. She frowned at him and he reached up to lay his hand over hers so he held it against his chest and squeezed.

“Come with me?” she said again.

"I could go with you," Will said.

Tessa was leaned into him, she could hear his heartbeat under her ear, but she was still surprised when he spoke. For a moment, she had forgotten everyone but the silver haired boy who was ashamed of fearing death. She pulled a little harder and he gave up another step. Will reached out and wrapped an arm around Jem's shoulder, closing the circle and sending Tessa's heart skittering around in her chest. They both relaxed a little when they were touching and being held close while it happened sent her thoughts in all directions before they settled somewhere farther south than they had been a minute ago.

They were charming in their twin naivete. They were dedicated to each other on every level but hey didn't see their bond the way she did. She knew that. Will didn't realize how utterly he readjusted himself, body and heart, when Jem touched him. Jem didn't realize that the way his attention locked on Will might indicate a different kind of interest than a concern for a friend.

They weren't trying to make her body warm but that didn’t matter. Her magic shook itself awake and started reaching out.

They didn't have to try.

"Come home with us?" she asked Jem.

He held her gaze for a moment and she thought he was going to say no. She thought he would say no right up until his hand tightened on hers and his lip quirked up and he said, "Witch."

"Wickedness is more fun and lucky for us, witch burning has gone terribly out of style," Tessa said with a smile.

"If we can't burn witches, what ever will we do with our time?" he said.

She grinned at him. A big happy smile that she didn't try and pull back at all. "I have so many ideas."

They did have to hire a carriage. Will made the arrangements with the driver and then waved them in. Tessa sat herself down beside Jem so she could hang onto his hand and keep an eye on his mood. He was nervous but it wasn't an unhappy feeling. He wasn't frightened or worried. It was the nerves of a new experience, not an unwanted one. He linked their fingers together and when Will climbed in after giving the driver directions and Jem held out a hand for him too. Will cracked a grin as he took it.

"If we form a connection," Jem said which was very nearly a euphemism but they knew what he meant, "Will the Clave be able to tell?"

"If you were to be examined, yes, the magic will cling," she said. "If you were to simply go about your day, it would not leave any physical damage on you. There is no mark or rune. It's permanent but it won't show to a casual observer."

"The Silent Brothers would be able to tell," Jem said.

"Yes and once they did, they'd put you in isolation somewhere to test the strength of the curse laid upon you and that separation would eventually kill you. It's not something that can be severed. I won't be able to sever it. They won't be able to sever it. I've never heard of someone surviving an attempt to break the connection. The only way out is in a pine box," she said.

"Shadowhunters are cremated," Will said.

"The point stands."

Jem snickered.

Tessa looked up at him and he glanced back at her with a smile. The carriage was dark enough that she could only see him in the light that slipped in from the windows. She caught the smile in a flash of light from a street lamp before the carriage was dark again.

“Dust to dust,” one of them said and the other one shot back a comment that didn’t make any sense to Tessa. They launched into an almost incomprehensible conversation that was half argument, half extended joke, half love story that neither of them realized they were spinning.

Sometime at the party, Jem had made a decision.

Tessa almost couldn't breathe around that. The smile and the easing in his body language. He held onto her as he argued with Will, the tension in his shoulders hadn't come back yet. He was open and curious and all that closed off doubt was fading. He was laughing and it sounded like music as it filled the space around them. Even tired, his personality burned bright.

He had decided to be hers.

Tessa studied him in the next patch of light as the carriage trotted by another lamp. He was shaking his head at Will and his hair fell forward into his eyes and his mouth was still turned up. He was beautiful and young and good. Good should have been easy to define but when she tried to follow her thoughts down that path, she couldn't make sense of it. He was a good person and he deserved something far better than the hand that fate at dealt him. She squeezed his fingers and leaned in closer to him so she was pressed against his side.

She was wrapped up in her own thoughts when they reached her home and despite the driver sitting right there, when Will reached out to help her down from the carriage, he didn't take her hand, he caught her around the waist and lifted her, setting her down in front of him like a doll. She wrinkled her nose at him but the expression wouldn't hold and it broke into a smile that he returned.

She led them upstairs and once they were inside everything sort of fell apart.

They had been building towards something but it stuttered in her entrance way.

She wanted Jem to ask for something and so rather than dropping a trail of suggestions, she left them in the front room with it's nicely appointed sofas and fashionable art choices and went to make tea. She was still wearing the dress but it was calming to fill the kettle and set it to boil on the stove that she kept lit with magic. Out in the other room, she could hear the soft sound of conversation as the boys continued their incomprehensible discussion that had moved from funeral arrangements through a variety of topics to land on the comparable merits of poetry or music.

She brought out the tray and set it on the table. The tea still needed to steep but she set everything down and then forced her way between them where they had sat down side by side on the largest sofa she owned. It wasn't quite big enough for three people but she wanted to be able to press in against them. They made room for her with a bit of laughter and some shifting to make room for the ridiculous skirt.

Tessa reached for a hand on each side and they let her grab hold of them and lace her fingers with theirs. She was possessive tonight. They were hers. Hers. She wanted to touch them both and sign her name on their skin and chase of anyone else who tried to get in the way.

"In the question of composition, they're equal but in the question of performance, music is far superior," she said in response to the argument.

"Excuse me," Will started.

"Anyone can read a poem but it takes skill to play a piece of music. It is equally difficult to write melodies as lines of verse but in performance, music is far more difficult and therefore it is more impressive to play a piece of music than to read a poem," she said.

"A good poetry reading is more than just reading the words aloud," Will said.

"That doesn't change the fact that it is more difficult to play the notes of a sonata on a piano. It is not just an intellectual skill of transforming marks on a page into meaning, it is a physical skill as well. It is not simple to press the right keys or pluck the right strings and a good musician does so much more than play the correct notes," she said.

"Two against one," Jem said with a little laugh.

He was fading. He was tired and his energy was waning ever farther as the night wore on. He leaned back and let his eyes fall partially shut as he smiled at Will. She nodded to show her support. She was leaning into Jem's argument. He was right and that helped but she also wanted him to notice that she was taking his side. The possibility of him choosing her was all it took to turn her into a selfish giddy girl. She was going to start batting her eyes and then she’d have to go get a fan or a handkerchief to fiddle with.

"Jem?" she said softly.

"Hm?" he said rousing himself from the doze he had almost slipped into.

"What do you want?" she asked.

Her eyes darted up to Will as she asked. Will was watching her with serious eyes and a friendly smile. The possibility of having Jem was intoxicating. The possibility of having Will like that was impossible but she met his eyes and she wanted it. Will was the easier one to get into bed but she wanted more than that.

She wanted to keep him.

She wanted years of invitations to parties where they could dance together and whisper together in quiet corners. She wanted years of him first thing in the morning being heavy and lazy and so warm that it made the world disappear. His hands on her skin. His eyes the last thing she saw before she fell asleep. She wanted to have him and never have to give him up.

"Whatever you want," Jem said. "I want to rest. I want to stay here."

"Here with me?"

"Mmh," he said with a little nod.

"And Will?"

"Yeah," he said.

Once the conversation had hit a lull, his exhaustion had caught up to him. He was quiet and collapsing. Falling asleep but not suffering. He was out of energy but he wasn't in pain. Tessa pulled him down so that his head was pillowed on her shoulder and he fell into position without complaint. Damn it. She was going to kill anyone who hurt this boy. She was going to find the demon that had poisoned him in the first place and start there. His eyes were shut and his aura burned down to embers. Low and sleepy.

"James," Will said.

"He's not suffering, he's only tired," Tessa interrupted.

"Mmhmm," Jem said.

"Pour me a cup of tea, just a little sugar and some milk," she said to Will.

She shifted so that she was laying back in the corner of the sofa. Jem let her shift him so he was resting on the broader part of her breast, his cheek above the neckline of the dress and his breath against her neck. He didn't open his eyes, the low burn of his exhaustion didn't even flicker. Will was watching him with concern but after a moment, he reached for the teapot and poured for them both.

"You talked him into it," Will said in a low voice once they both held a cup of tea.

"Are you accusing me of something? Is he really the type of person who allows himself to talked into things he doesn't want?" Tessa asked with a teasing smile.

"No."

She grinned and ran her fingers up through Jem's hair. He shifted against her but he'd slipped down into sleep and didn't wake. His hair shone like sun on ice but it was soft as down feathers and he was warm. His golden yellow aura was drawn in close with his exhaustion but it was still rich in colour. Will watched her play with Jem's hair and his face was unreadable. She took a sip of tea from the cup she held in her other hand and studied him.

"He hasn't asked me for anything and until he does, I won't change anything about this relationship," Tessa said. "If he does ask for it, what will you do?"

Will frowned. "Me?"

"Are you coming with us?"

"Where are you going?"

"China?" Tessa said. "Isn't that his plan? To use any strength he gains from me to go after the demon that killed his parents?"

Will blinked and then nodded slowly, like it was all a surprise to him. He hadn’t thought it through that far or maybe he hadn’t realized what each piece would mean.

"I'm not leaving him, or you," Will said.

Tessa let her grin spread as wide and happy as it wanted to be. She held out her tea cup and Will took it and set it back on the tray with his own. It wasn’t finished by she didn’t care.

"Help me take him to bed," she said.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tessa, honey, you're a little bit in love aren't you?


	13. All In One Place

Jem was half awake as they stripped him out of his nice suit and tucked him into bed wearing just his underwear. Tessa didn't invite people back to her apartment. It was private. She didn't keep extra men's pajamas in her closet for unexpected suitors but the underwear was fine. Jem was so pale and she had chosen a rich red for her bedding that made him look like a piece of silver jewelry laid out on rich velvet.

Tessa watched him shift into the covers. The bed was a bit decadent. A heavy duvet, velvet and satin and feather ticking. He cuddled into it without waking. Tessa felt that burn of protectiveness rise again as she watched him press his cheek into her pillow. Will let his gaze slide over her once he was sure that Jem was tucked in comfortably and he wasn't running a fever.

He turned his attention to Tessa and there was weight to it. She smiled at him. He was beautiful and the care and concern on his face might be meant for Jem but Tessa still liked seeing it. But under the care was something else. Something darker and needier.

"Is this normal?" Will asked.

"Thinking about taking a woman to bed beside your sleeping best friend?" Tessa asked.

Will didn't rise to the joke. He might as well have never heard it.

"Wanting you like this," he said.

"Yes, that's normal," she said. "Not because I'm a monster seducing you with my magic, just because you're young and your blood runs hot. People don't take honeymoons for the scenery, Mr. Herondale, they take them because they need a little while to work through this."

"You're telling me you don't seduce people with your magic?"

"Oh I do and I have done it to you before but it doesn’t linger once I’m finished. In this moment? Whatever is happening to you right now, is your own desire and nature acting upon you, not my magic."

Will nodded.

"What do you want?" Tessa asked.

"I want you to look at me, like you were looking at Jem in the carriage."

"Jealous?"

He straightened and pulled back and she regretted the suggestion immediately. There were some things that were cute and funny when brought up as teasing and there were some things that should remained buried. She reached for him and he let her take his hand but he was tense and watchful.

"He has a reason to choose me," Tessa admitted. "He has goals that have nothing to do with me. You don't need me and I'm trying very hard not to pin any hopes on you because you are the one who will return to polite society and leave me out here alone."

"Do you want me?"

"Yes."

"More than him?"

Tessa tilted her head. "It's a different kind of want."

"What does that mean?"

Will was building towards a hostile reaction. His mood was twisting tight. She reached out to touch his face and his chin tilted forward into the touch but his expression didn't soften.

"I want to protect Jem, to wrap him up and tease his secrets out of him. I want him to laugh and curl into me like he did tonight. I want him," she said.

Will's expression didn't relax but he nodded.

"You're different," she said. She stepped in closer. "I want to curl up against you, not so I can protect you from whatever is out there but so that I can feel that safety. I want you to stroke my hair and whisper things against my ear. I want party invitations and book recommendations. I want someday, someday a long way from today, for you to trust me to take care of you too."

“I do trust you,” he said.

“And I do want you,” she said. “I’ve wanted you since I first saw you and everything you do, everything you say makes me want you a little more.”

He nodded and she pulled him down into her bed. It wasn’t as big as the massive carved wood things at the Institute and they had only just managed to get their clothes off before they woke Jem who rolled over to blink sleepy and confused at them. Tessa was flat on her back with her magic thrown wide and she felt him wake before she turned over to meet his gaze. The lamps were still on in the room but it was a half light. She smiled at him.

"Do you two ever stop?" he asked but there wasn't any bite to it. Soft, a bit annoyed, but not angry.

"It isn't in my plans for the day, no," Tessa said.

Jem shifted and Tessa nudged him with just a touch of magic, a question, not a demand. He frowned a little at her, not understanding it yet. He had beautiful eyes this close and she reached out and pulled him in with a hand on his neck. He rolled into her easily but went still when he remembered that Will was lying on top of her and now he was touching them both. Bare legs, bare arms, Will was naked and Jem was close to it. Tessa didn't move her hand and left her magic hanging in the air, arousal and invitation but nothing that pushed or prodded or demanded.

The energy between them made her heart race.

Their auras bled together and they watched each other with careful eyes. They weren’t comfortable with this side of the line. The thing between them was thick in the air but they weren’t content here. Not yet. Tessa leaned in and kissed Will's neck. He startled and she pressed her hips up into him. The arousal he was expecting and the shifting interest that he wasn't were unbalancing him and she wanted to make sure arousal won out.

The possibility of enjoying Will while this thing between them saturated the air was made her mouth water. It was a delicate balance. They weren't quite ready to admit it but she still wanted to be able to rub herself up against all that emotion and curl up in the space they had left between them. Neither of them was ready to admit how much he wanted the other but they were both able to admit that they wanted her.

"Sit up," she said.

"Me?" Jem said.

"Yeah, lie back, I'll do all the work, you can just watch," she said.

She rearranged the positions so she was on her hands and knees between them. She settled down on her elbows and pulled Jem's cock free of his meager clothing. He wasn't hard yet. She flashed him a smile but he was looking at something over her shoulder. It took licking his cock to drag his attention back from Will.

She worried that Will was going to slam into her without warming her up but he was distracted. Very distracted. He rubbed her from behind, doing a terrible job but it was enough to warm her up a little, as he watched her suck on Jem's cock. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and changed the angle so that Will had a better view of what she was doing. He kept rubbing and she shifted her hips a little, hoping for a better angle but he wasn’t helping with that.

His patience didn't last long and soon he was sliding his cock into her and making her gasp. The angle was deep and he was still watching Jem more than he was paying attention to what he was doing. Tessa arched her hips a little and did some of the work herself to get him moving the way she wanted him to. He caught on a second later and kept up the rhythm she had given him.

Jem was as careful as he had been the last time she had put his cock in her mouth.

He was a hazard to her health once he was aroused. He had curled his fingers in her hair and was holding her close. It had been fine until she moaned at Will pressing into her and the pressure of his hand at the back of her neck pulled her down too far. Now she had a cock buried in her mouth, brushing up against the back of her throat. She had never had much of a gag reflex to worry about she still needed to breathe. She was having to steal breaths through her nose at the right part of the thrust.

Tessa didn't take this kind of treatment. Tessa was used to being the one in control. Tessa used magic and suggestion to make people do what she wanted. People who tried to push her around didn’t get this close to her but Jem had crept in past all her defenses. The bigger issue was that she liked it and didn’t want him to stop.

She didn't fight for control. She let them have it. They were so in sync that it didn't take long for them to find a rhythm that worked for both of them. Will pushed her forward on each slow deep thrust and she found herself with her nose against Jem's stomach and her throat so full that she couldn't get a breath in, then he pulled back and she sucked in air before the next thrust came. She stayed where she was and enjoyed it.

"Faster?" Will suggested.

Tessa wasn't sure who he was talking to but she shook her head. Jem's cock was against her lips and she was panting to catch up with her shaky breaths. She couldn't take faster. Faster would mean no time to breathe at all. She pulled Jem's hands out of her hair and considered him for a moment.

"Hands off," she said.

He blinked at her, not quite following the topic of the conversation. He was sensitive and passionate and easy to overwhelm. Tessa wanted to tie him down and spend a day teasing him until he strained and begged for her. He reached for her again and she wove a little bit of a spell and pulled his hands back to either side. He struggled and she held him in place while he frowned.

The magic held him in place and went back to sucking his cock. A few slow careful licks before she looked up to check on that frown.

“Is that tolerable?” she asked.

There was an edge in his aura. In some other situation, without Will there, when he wasn't quite so turned on, he wouldn't have let her pin him down like that. He sat with his back against the headboard and his knees spread on either side of her and his cheeks flushed pink. She looked up at him but his attention was on Will again.

“Yeah, that’s- it’s- that is to say, it’s tolerable,” he fumbled out.

She settled in and sucked his cock at her pace, according to her preferences. Will picked up on the new position very quickly and picked up his rhythm. She was braced on her elbows so he couldn't push her all the way down against Jem's cock anymore but he still dominated her thoughts. Harder. Faster. Showing off a little bit because Jem was watching.

And Jem was watching.

Tessa shifted the position. Raising her hips and leaning forward so her head was lower and her bottom higher. Will caught her hips and kept going hard and fast in the position. She had a mouth full of Jem but wasn't putting quite as much attention into it he needed. Will jerked her forward and pulled her back with his fingers dug into her hips. He was demanding and too inexperienced to know where the line was. She was too turned on to care where the line was so they careened over it without stopping to talk or discuss.

He came inside her with his cock deep inside and his hands clenched tight on her body. He collapsed forward and Tessa had enough clarity left to twist. She controlled his fall so he fell forward into Jem's lap with her instead of landing on the edge of the bed. He blinked at her and she was still absently sucking on Jem's cock. She was going to have to get herself together if she wanted him to come for her but for a moment she just lay there and kept him in her mouth, sucking enough to keep him hard but all her attention was on Will.

Will watched her.

She pulled him closer and he didn't argue as she offered him Jem's cock. Jem's hands were still held back against the headboard of the bed and the sound he made was low and shocked. Will sucked on him without hesitation. It might have been arousal or simply the offer of an excuse but he took to it without pause. Jem shifted but didn’t argue either.

Tessa watched it disappear into Will’s mouth a little at a time, he tilted his jaw into it but kept his hands to himself. His lips were wet, his eyes were shut. Jem was staring down, eyes half shut but his attention intent. On Will. Tessa lay her head on his thigh and rubbed Will's back as she watched them together.

Jem didn't last much longer. He came in Will's mouth and Tessa pressed enough magic and suggestion into Will to keep him there, to keep him sucking and swallowing until Jem was spent and aching. He pulled back, blinking off the magic and unsure what to do next. Tessa kissed him. He hadn’t swallowed and she got a mouth full of it as he kissed her back. She shivered hard and kissed him harder, chasing the taste and the intensity of the emotion he was feeling.

“That was-” Will started.

“Wonderful,” Tessa said and kissed him again.

She climbed up the bed and straddled Jem’s lap and kissed him too before she let his wrists go and pulled him down. He was quiet and a little uneasy but neither of them were arguing with her as she pushed them together and pulled the blankets up.

Tessa curled herself in at Jem's back so he was facing Will. She couldn't have held him where he didn't want to be, not while the magic was slipped loose and spilling over all of them. Tessa hadn’t worried about controlling the magic and there was power in the air around them. Jem was soaking it up faster than anyone else.

Jem settled in so his head was on Will's shoulder and Tessa's arm was curled around his waist. Will kept licking his lips and Tessa leaned over Jem one more time to kiss him hard on the mouth.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when did this fic become a heronstairs fic?  
> not complaining just wasn't planning on it. 
> 
> also hi  
> not dead  
> 


	14. Morning

Tessa woke up to wandering hands and she smiled. She was tired and sated. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt this good. They were both still there, Will curled up beside her and Jem out of view, running his hand up and down her back. She twisted and stretched a little so she could press her back up against Jem's hand like a cat and settle her head on Will's chest. His heartbeat was slow and even and the world fell into that same slow pattern.

"Good morning," Jem said.

His hands got a little bolder. He had been rubbing her back and running his hand along her shoulders but now he let his palm trail down to her thighs. Not between them. Not yet. She spread her knees just a little. A suggestion, not a request. He finally took her up on it and his hand slid up the inside of her leg from her knee to where she was still wet from everything that had happened the night before. Just a glancing touch. She murmured for him but let him set the pace and explore however he wanted to. His hands were thin and graceful and so gentle. She cuddled in closer to Will and spread herself a little wider for the hand between her legs.

Jem got forward, exploring with his fingers and watching her. She could feel his curiosity and as long as she wasn't watching him and kept making little happy sounds and encouraging shifts of her hips, he wasn't getting shy. He pressed a finger against her opening and she bit her lip and cut off the moan that had more to do with wanting him to do it than what he was actually doing.

"Hi," Will said.

"Shh, go back to sleep," Tessa muttered at him.

He was going to set Jem back into that shy watchful place just by being awake. Will laughed a little and pushed himself up on his elbows. Tessa didn't raise her head. Shockingly, Jem did not pull away from her. He pushed another finger into her, slow and still too gentle but he didn't let Will distract him.

"Do you want me to give you two a moment?" Will asked.

"Stay," Tessa said wrapping her arms around him a little tighter and making him chuckle at her, "But be quiet."

Will laughed and dropped back down against the pillows. He played with her hair and rubbed her neck but he did as he was told. He kept quiet. Jem's attention had caught on Will again. The way they watched each other crackled through their auras. She didn't need to open her eyes to see it, she could feel it like lightning in the air before the storm.

"Can I?" Jem asked.

"Anything you want," Tessa told him.

He didn't ask her to roll over, He just slid into place between her spread knees. She tilted her hips up and rearranged her knees so that he could get his cock in the right place. She was already breathing hard and he hadn't even started. Will moved and Tessa stopped him before he could get too far. She buried her face against his neck and kissed his throat. He relaxed back down. There was something about this moment that was more about Jem and Will than it was about her. A long pause and then Jem slid into her.

She didn't try to hold back the moan. The angle made him seem even longer. He filled her up and she squeezed her eyes shut. She could have clawed back her self control. She could have kept herself sane and coherent despite the succubus instincts that skewed towards arousal over all else. She didn't try. She gave herself over to it. She gave herself over to wanting him so much that she couldn't think about anything else.

Jem was slow and tentative and still exploring for the first few strokes and then he found his rhythm and his confidence. She let herself moan and arch back into him. She wanted him and she wasn't going to make that a secret. Jem stroked into her, deep and filling, and she snuggled in tight to Will and just enjoyed each movement of those narrow hips.

Will said something she was too distracted to understand.

"Hmm?" she said.

"Lift your hips for him, baby," Will said.

She did. Will was keeping her steady. She'd let herself go too far, she was lost in arousal and the magic that filled the air. Sex and power and affection. Heavy. Warm. The physical sensations and the magical ones were blurring. It had been more than a century since she'd let herself go this far. It was always possible but it was dangerous to belong so utterly to some stranger, some meal.

Someone reached between her legs and started to rub. She cried out. She had to struggle for control of her orgasm, a struggle that she lost. She cried out again. No one stopped. Jem didn't last much longer than she did and he collapsed down beside her and Will on the bed, breathing hard, flushed pink and smiling. Tessa flung a hand out and stroked his chest because it was the first thing she touched.

"Can I have a turn? Can you do that again?" Will asked.

Tessa nodded, "I want to do it again."

"Not quite what I asked," he said.

"Make me ache, I trust you not to hurt me," she said.

Will flipped her over onto her back and she rearranged herself enough to get an arm around Jem's waist and her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her like it was second nature, as easy as breathing. This position meant that Will was going to be watching Jem the entire time he was inside her and perhaps that should have made her jealous but it didn't. They both belonged to her as far as her instincts cared. The love they had for each other was just another piece of that.

Her boys. Her love.

Will was already hard from the little show Jem had put on with her body and he slid into her as soon as he got her knees where he wanted them. He was young and impatient and there was something adorable about that. He slid all the way into her on one long stroke that ended with their hips flush together. Her stomach muscles flinched and a moment later he pulled back. Then all the way in again.

It took her a few thrusts to realize that she was the one making the gasping little cries on every stroke. She had let her self control go so far.

Too far.

This was dangerous. She couldn’t gather her magic together closely enough to do anything. She wouldn’t have been able to levitate feathers to save her life let alone work a spell that might actually help. She was too relaxed and needy to fight back against them.

She didn’t care.

“Don’t hurt me,” she pushed out through heavy breathing.

“Never,” Will said.

“You’re safe,” Jem told her.

Will settled into her, close and heavy and possessive. The look on his face was almost enough to drag another orgasm out of her. His gaze kept straying to Jem and Tessa shifted, forcing them to readjust to her so the boys were closer together. Will couldn't brace his elbow on the mattress any more and instead had to touch Jem or pull her back into position. Will didn't stop, he reached over Jem to brace his hand on the other side of Jem's body. It meant they were touching every time Will leaned into a thrust.

Jem's reaction shifted immediately. Will was thinking about the sex he was in the middle of having but Jem's attention was all on the places where Will's body brushed against his. Tessa's arm was half asleep. She'd slipped it under Jem's back when she'd taken this position. She held onto him to keep him close and ignored the fact that he was too heavy to lie on her arm without it aching.

She was so far gone into the arousal and the neediness that she could have taken just about any pain and enjoyed it. Succubus instincts were terrible for self-preservation which was why she never let them this far out of the box. She could have taken biting and slaps and half a battalion between her legs before her body remembered that pain was a bad thing.

Her boys weren't going to hurt her.

Fingerprint bruises on her hips and body weight on her arm and the ache of her muscles after being fucked, yes, all of that and probably more. But they wouldn't hurt her. She didn't need to defend herself. She let herself collapse down into her own arousal and her own instincts because she knew that she would be safe. They weren't gentle with her but they were kind.

Will certainly wasn't being gentle.

He was close and so each thrust was just a press of hips but he was deep and he was going hard and fast. She came again. She shuddered and squirmed on his cock but she had set herself up to be pinned down between them and they didn't let her go. She didn't want them to let her go. Will tilted her mouth up and kissed her. She cried out as another wave shivered through her and he kissed her harder and kept thrusting.

She came again before he finished by that point she had she lost track of where the orgasms started or stopped. They started to blur together so by the time he had reached the end, filling her with a shudder of his hips and a wet sound as he slid out, she was panting and shaky.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked.

"No, that was amazing," she said and it might have been a lie but she didn't want him to doubt himself next time. She wanted him to take her like that over and over again. She pulled him in close and kissed him hard to make sure he wasn't second-guessing what she said.

She held onto them both, keeping them all close together. There was a little bit of shifting so her arm didn’t go numb but none of it moved them apart. She lay there for a little bit, reeling her self control and her magic back in.

She pushed a suggestion at Jem and he reached out and ran his hand up Will’s arm without hesitation. Will raised his eyebrows and Tessa rolled in a little closer and nuzzled his throat to keep him from saying or doing anything that would slow it down. It was enough to break the ice and Jem’s hand kept going.

Tessa was as aware of it as Will was. Will should have been glowing or crackling like an electrical storm it was affecting him so strongly. Tessa played with his hair as Jem ran his fingers up and down. Jem’s attention wasn’t really on Will. He was watching his own hand moving over skin. Will was the one who was staring.

“I realize that I’m the daughter of a sex demon so my opinions on the matter are a little skewed but I cannot imagine how you two managed to ignore this for so long,” Tessa said.

Jem went still and Will looked at her.

“It’s almost impressive,” she said.

“You can love someone without having sex,” Jem said.

“You can,” she said with a laugh as she rolled over to kiss his neck. “I’m more interested in how much you want to.”

Neither of them pulled away from her but neither of them looked at anyone. Tessa was half drunk on all the sex and the intensity of the emotion in the room and wasn’t being quite as sensitive as they needed her to be. She was still close to Jem and his heart rate was picking up. She kissed his pulse where it hammered in his throat and that didn’t help.

“Kiss the boy and then take a nap and then we’ll conjure in some breakfast,” Tessa said.

It didn’t work. Will started to laugh and that set Jem off and it broke the tension. Tessa lay there as they laughed at each other over her. The laughter made it almost worth the disappointment. Jem shook his head and was the first one to sit up and go looking for clothes.

“You’re missing a treat. He tastes delicious,” she said.

Jem pretended he didn’t hear her as he rummaged around for his shirt but Will rolled in closer to her.

“I know,” he whispered in her ear and then he was up too. Laughing and teasing and arguing over what belonged to who and how it had gotten thrown where it did. Tessa lay in bed and just listened to them laugh at each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do not get used to regular updates. This is a two weekend fluke, not evidence of any sort of discipline from me.


	15. Spark an Interest

Watching Jem come back to life was mesmerizing. They didn't stay at her place every night but they stayed often and Jem's strength returned steadily. It wasn't his. It was Tessa's and it was Will's and he had just been allowed to steal enough of it to keep him going. Where it had come from didn’t lessen the miracle of watching it work on him. Tessa was glad of it and happy to share. Will would gladly have given his own life for this miracle and Tessa could see it in the way he watched Jem.

It was early morning and Jem was sitting with his back against her headboard and the blankets gathered in his lap and he was laughing, bright and loud, while he argued with Tessa about something inconsequential. She could barely remember what they were saying. Will watched him with such intensity that Tessa couldn't think about anything but the two of them. Jem didn't look different. He was as thin as he had been when she had met him and the unnatural silvery hue of his skin lingered as did the shimmering silver of his hair and eyes. He looked the same but he didn't carry himself the same.

He didn't walk carefully. He didn't hold his hands at a specific angle. He didn't ease himself into chairs or manage his expressions. His neck didn't hurt when he turned his head. His joints didn't ache if he dropped himself into bed. It was like watching someone drag themselves back to life. It might have been energy that he was getting from her and Will but it took on a life of its own in his body. Bright and vibrant and happy. He laughed and joked and cuddled.

They were both nervous about the possibility of physical intimacy between them but not enough to slow down all the touching they naturally fell into.

Jem leaned into Will and set his chin on Will's shoulder. Jem was the one who rolled over so that Will was pinned down after they'd finished for the night. Will pretended that he wasn't nearly as content with the physical contact but his little frowns only lasted a moment before he closed his eyes and relaxed into whatever touch Jem had offered him.

Will wanted more than hands on his arms or a head on his knee. Will watched Jem like he was the solution to every problem in the world. Jem was better at controlling his emotions. He was less willing to cross the boundaries. Jem set the lines and the rest of them had nothing to do but work within them. Tessa let him have that control for a few days. She let him build up his strength and get used to enjoying it. She could control how much pleasure flowed.

Once he was used to it, expected it, wanted it, she cut it off.

She tied his pleasure to Will and then let him fuck her until he was panting and aching and frustrated and not near the orgasm he needed. He wasn’t gentle on the best of days and as the frustration built as his body slammed into the magic, he went harder. She cried out as he slammed himself into her. His neediness made her want him more. She came fast. He didn’t.

He panted into her shoulder as he rested, still hard, he had slipped out of her, but he was aching and unsatisfied. She didn't explain it. She didn't offer any ultimatums. She just left him like that.

The next morning, she woke him up with her mouth on his cock and sucked until he asked her stop. He hadn't come. He'd skipped the orgasm to become oversensitive and uncomfortable. The day went on without a complaint. She watched him get more frustrated and the next night, he took her hard again before giving up when his body started to ache but the relief wouldn’t come.

"Did you do something to me?" he asked on the morning of the third day.

They'd gone through a few rounds by the time he asked. Sex and her mouth. She didn't stop until he asked her to. He didn't ask her to until it started to hurt. His voice was tight and as close to angry as she’d heard it in a long time.

"Yes," she said.

He sighed.

"Why?"

That wasn't the question she had expected. She turned to look at him. He was still flushed and breathing hard from the fucking he'd just given her. They had the room to themselves. Will was out on Shadowhunter business and would be back later that night. Jem had taken her twice since he'd arrived. Going hard and fast until he was aching and frustrated just after he'd come in the door and then again once he'd recovered. He lay there and stared hard at her.

"To force your hand," she said evenly.

"To do what?"

"To touch Will or maybe I just wanted to know if you were touching Will when I wasn’t watching. Apparently, you aren't."

"Excuse me?" Jem said.

"Will is the solution to your problem. Your pleasure is tied to him."

Jem frowned, "Are you jealous that I might be fooling around with him behind your back?"

Tessa blinked at him and shook her head.

"So what is it? Why this little magic trick?"

Jem's hands were clenched into fists and his eyebrows drawn together into a deep crease but his voice stayed even. He might have been terrifying if he wasn't naked and flushed. But he was and his cock was still hard. She twisted her fingers together to keep herself from reaching out and rubbing him just to make him gasp.

"I want you to be fooling around with him," she said. "It wasn't a trap so much as a suggestion. I figured you two were on the line enough that the little bit of a suggestion would be all it would take to push you over. Apparently, I misjudged that."

Jem scowled.

"You really have no interest in that sort of relationship?" she asked.

She saw his aura flicker. The colour of his soul responded before he did. He didn't like the question but that was as much as she could make out before he pressed the reaction down.

"He'd do anything you wanted," Tessa said.

Jem shot her a look. He rolled over in the bed and lay down on his stomach. He was almost pouting as he gathered the blankets around himself.

"Anything," Tessa said.

"You don't know what either of us wants," Jem said.

"I know what sparks a sexual interest. That's the point of my magic. That is what I am. A bloodhound scents blood, a succubus scents sex. You like it when he touches you. He would die for you and when you touch him during a sexual moment, he blazes brighter than a fire doused with kerosene. I don't know every inch of your heart and mind but I do know what gets you hard."

Jem pursed his lips.

"Let me ask him to swallow you down while he's inside me tonight. He'll agree to it. It'll break this pesky spell," Tessa said reaching out and drawing her finger along his cock.

"You could break that spell."

"I could, if you asked, but I think you're going to choose Will's mouth over a wave of my fingers."

Jem stared at her but in the end, he got up and went to wash up without an answer.

Will came in later, stripping his gear off and leaving it in a heap on the chair in her front room. Tessa watched him.

"Come here," he said.

Tessa crossed the room. He was posturing more than he usually did so it hadn't been a good hunt. Whatever demon he had faced or whichever Shadowhunter he had been paired with had annoyed him. Tessa crossed the room and knelt down and started sucking his cock as soon as he got enough clothing off for her to reach it.

She waved a bit of a spell so he wouldn't come before she wanted him to and then set to work. He was panting and twisting his fingers in her hair but his cock was still only just barely hard. She slowed down and he held her in place, his cock buried in her mouth and her nose brushing the hair at the base of his cock. He smelled of sweat and leather and it could have been disgusting but it just made her body temperature tick a little higher. He thrust against her mouth and she closed her eyes and let him do it. He wasn't going to come like this. Not yet. Not until she wanted him to.

Jem slipped into the room as it was happening and his attention made Tessa self-conscious. He was watching. She opened her mouth a little wider and adjusted the angle so that Will slid in a little deeper. Showing off. She knew he was already thinking about Will and she gave him a little something to consider. When Will pulled back, she had to turn away and gasp for air. She caught her breath, made eye contact with Jem, and took it that deep again.

She had told Jem that she could see the sexual interest. His was burning like a bonfire in response to everything as he watched.

She held out a hand to him and he came over. Will threw an arm over his shoulder and Tessa fumbled a hand out and pulled the trousers he wore free so she could get a hand on his cock. Then she switched over from sucking Will to swallowing Jem down. Jem moaned immediately. He had been suffering on the brink of teasing for too long and even with the magic suppressing his responses, he was on edge. Tessa sucked him until he was hard and then switched back to Will and kept a hand on him. She knew she had his undivided attention. He watched Will's cock disappear into her mouth and she looked up and locked eyes with him as it happened.

Finally, she pulled back and stood.

"I want you to suck him like that," Tessa said to Will.

Jem went rigid and scarlet all at once. Tessa ignored him.

"I want you inside me while I lie on my back and him in your mouth where I can watch it happen," she said.

There was a moment of hesitation where Will looked up at Jem and Tessa couldn't read the exchange. It was Jem who nodded and Tessa jumped to her feet and grabbed their hands before questions could start circulating.

Her first fantasy wasn't going to work. Jem wasn't nearly comfortable enough to take any pleasure while up on his feet with no one to touch. She lay out on her back and kept Will's orgasm under her control as he slid into her. He was as easy going about sucking off Jem as she had expected that he would be but Jem couldn't relax into it. Finally, Tessa pulled him down into the bed with them and just rubbed his back as Will worked himself against her. She came. They didn't.

"Just let him fuck you, James," she whispered.

"How exactly am I going to fuck him?" Will asked in a mocking imitation, "He doesn't have the same bits that you do."

The opportunity was too good to pass up. She wanted to watch them be emotional together but the possibility of watching Will take Jem like that until Jem fell apart was too much to ignore. Tessa used magic rather than words to push the suggestion into both their heads. A visual that made Will inhale and Jem murmur something incomprehensible.

"Try it for me," she whispered.

Will's interest piqued first. It usually did. He was the easier one to give suggestions to. Jem's wasn't far behind. Suggestion. A little magic to ease the question of wetness and tightness. Once they'd gotten on the road, she did everything she could to keep them there. Tessa played with Jem's ass and guided Will's hand forward. She fed him images and suggestion until he pressed a finger inside. Jem cried out. It wasn't a moan. It was far louder than that. Jem was on edge and had been for the better part of a week.

"A little more," Tessa said. "Give him a bit more than a little taste."

Will burying two fingers all the way in Jem's ass made him collapse. Tessa readjusted how she was lying. She caught him and pulled him in so he was held in place in her arms while Will played with him. She lay on her back and pulled him down so he lay over her. She was strong enough to dig her magic into him and make sure he wouldn't struggle away from her by accident.

"Ask me and I'll move, always," she said as she held on tight. He was going to have to ask if he wanted her to let go.

If he wasn't asking in either words or panic, she wasn't letting go. She pulled him in close and rubbed his back while Will got more curious about what he was doing. Jem didn't suppress his reactions. He was sweet and sheltered and it had never occurred to him to pretend he was above it all or try and reduce his reactions. He moaned and squirmed and dropped his head down against her shoulder where she just stroked his hair and kept edging him towards a sexual response.

Controlling how fast they traveled down this road was her greatest concern. Will wasn't good at going slow enough and Jem wasn't good at understanding his body's needs. His pain tolerance was irrationally high. She used magic to keep everything wet and she used whispered suggestions to keep Will going slow and drawing it out. Jem was panting and very nearly begging by the time that Tessa stopped fighting Will's worst urges.

Will lined himself up and slid inside with a wet sound and a long low moan. Jem shuddered and Tessa stroked her fingers through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck. She had set him up for this but she hadn't intended it to be quite this intense for him. There was no hesitation in him. She threw her powers wide to be sure of it but there wasn't any more hesitation left in either of them.

Jem moaned.

“Worth the wait?” Tessa asked.

He gasped out a response that wasn't words. It was little more than a moan. She settled back and kept him close.

Will took him too hard just like he always took Tessa too hard. Jem didn’t question or complain about it. He stretched and relaxed into every thrust. He held onto her but didn’t complain even when Will made him wince.

Jem came first. He came with a moan and sprayed cum across her stomach. She reached down between them and rubbed his cock as Will kept going. He was gasping as she did it. The last drops fell on her stomach and he fumbled down, pulling her hand away. Will kept going, pushing him down against Tessa’s body.

Will’s orgasm was quieter but Tessa felt it through the shudder of magic and pleasure around them. She kissed Jem’s temple and his cheek and worked her way down his neck as he relaxed in the aftermath. Will collapse into them both and stretched out with a groan.

“I couldn’t have asked for better, you two are perfect,” Tessa said.

“Let him do that to you, next time,” Jem said.

“Given how much you enjoyed it, maybe I will,” she said.

He blushed and turned into her shoulder. Will laughed leaned into his back. Tessa played with his hair as they lay there and all caught their breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> porn porn porn 
> 
> I will eventually have to get to the finale of this and deal with the deal they made but a little more just fucking around before we get there.


	16. Our Jem, My Jem

Jem cast her a look and a little smile when she came into the room. She hadn’t gotten properly dressed. Her shift, a robe, nothing else. The robe was pulled shut and belted. His attention caught on her bare feet and then strayed back to his cup then the window. She crossed the room, more aware of her legs below the robe than she would usually be. Careful steps that caught his attention again as she stepped up onto the sofa beside him and sat down on the arm of it so she was looking down at him. For a little while, they sat in a companionable silence before Tessa started to push her luck.

"There's a rune in the ceremony," Tessa said.

He looked up at her and she held his gaze. He was sitting respectably on the sofa with a cup of tea in hand and his attention on the street. He had his trousers on but his shirt was unbuttoned and Tessa was trying very hard to keep the urge to put her mouth on him under control. Will had gone back to the Institute on some business and left them both behind. Jem hadn't bothered to fully dress after everything they'd done in the morning. He was comfortable and adorable.

Tessa hadn’t expected to get to comfortable with him. She had thought that out of reach. Tolerance perhaps. Interest on a purely physical level. A shared affection for Will. All of these things seemed possible. But to just have him curled up in her front room, at ease and smiling at her as she came into the room was a wonderful surprise.

"Ceremony?" Jem asked.

"The binding ceremony."

He nodded but didn’t look at her.

"Are you still considering it?" she asked.

"Of course."

"Where would you want it?"

He blinked at her. He definitely hadn't been considering it in any detail but she wasn't going to call him out on that. His bright silver eyes held on her. Less comfortable. More wary. He was attempting to hide that reaction and suppress his emotions. It would have worked if she wasn’t so attuned to his particular aura after the days of intimacy they had shared. His voice was more controlled when he finally answered her.

"Is there a customary place?" he asked.

"Over your heart." she said. "If you cut it off, you break the connection so traditionally it is put someplace that cannot be cut away."

"But if it is removed, I would die," he said.

"Yes but if it were on your hand," she rubbed the thin skin of his wrist with her thumb, "You could die unfettered and at your control rather than mine."

"Cut my hand off?"

"And be dead by the next sunrise."

"It would take that long?"

"So I've heard. I have never had any connections so all my information is second hand."

He nodded and watched her fingers on his wrist. These narrow places on his body felt fragile. His wrists. His fingers. Even his hips between her thighs sometimes felt like they were breakable. He wasn’t. There was immense strength in him but as he watched her like that, she felt like the dangerous one.

"Do you want this?" he asked.

"Yes."

"You're not just doing it because Will asked you to? He has been known to have that effect on people."

"He is persuasive. There's something about him that makes you want to offer him the world," she said. "But you’re as much to blame as he is. I don't want you to leave. The possibility of your death is horrifying."

"Are you going to bind him as well?"

"If he asks for it," she said.

She slid down to sit closer to him so that she could trace the pattern of the rune she would draw on his sternum. She let her robe slide up so when she dropped a leg over his lap, it was bare to her thigh. Then she ran her fingers up and down his skin while he watched her. She fussed with the open shirt front, playing with the buttons as she ran her fingers all the way down to the waistband of his trousers then back up again. The touch made him calmer. A few days ago, it would have made him tense up and shiver and draw away but now he was hers.

No. Not yet. Not hers.

The little voice didn’t let up and whispered thoughts that all circled back around to, “My Jem.”

"You want him," Jem said.

"I do," she said leaning in to kiss his chest. "So do you. It would be a cruelty to separate you. He'll stay with you binding or not. I am just selfish enough to want to make him mine."

"It's not selfish to want love," he said.

Tessa looked up at him. She had been kissing lazy lines across his collar bone but she froze at that. That was not a word she let herself use very often and not in contexts like this. Jem misread her expression and tilted her chin up to kiss her mouth. She kissed him back, it was almost enough to make her forget the word. Almost. He'd said it so simply. Like he was expressing a fact. Then he kissed her like it meant something.

My Jem.

Tessa drew back and met his gaze. He gave her a happy smile and pulled her back in for another kiss. It left her disoriented. His aura was soft and kind and warm and drawing conclusions from that was a bad idea. That word was going to come back around. He wasn’t hers. Neither of them belonged to her and she wasn’t going to benefit from making wild conjectures or letting herself fall into fairy tales. He kissed her again, catching her face in both hands and holding her close.

She grabbed hold of his arousal instead of thinking about all that emotion. Emotions were complicated. Sex wasn’t. She grabbed hold and held his arousal in place. He wasn't even hard yet. She pulled away from his mouth. He gave her a soft smile that she ignored as she kissed her way back down his neck, his chest, his stomach, and opened his pants. He hadn't realized what she had done yet but it didn't take long after she started sucking for him to figure it out.

He murmured something in Chinese. He was turned on enough to be enjoying it but he wasn't getting harder, he wasn't going to get anywhere near an orgasm if she kept him like this. He got demanding fast. The emotions were still swirling in his aura but his hand twisted in her hair as he held her in place so she was trapped with his soft cock in her mouth. She kept him like that for a long time and he held her tight in return.

She gave him back enough control of his arousal to get him hard and then cut it off again. He was still holding on. Too tight and now he was big enough to be pressing all the way into her throat. A little too rough. A little uncomfortable. That was a relief. It was a distraction from thinking about other things.

Will found them like that. Jem flushed and frustrated and Tessa with her nose down against his stomach. She took Jem’s distraction as a chance to sit up and smile. Will had let himself in using a key she had let him borrow and he stood with his back against the door. He had slammed it shut when he had realized that the two of them were in full view of anyone walking by in the hall. Tessa wiped her mouth on her sleeve and made a little bit of a show of it since she had both their attention.

"I was only gone for a few hours, it isn't even lunch time yet," Will said.

"Can I get a little relief now that he's here?" Jem asked.

"Ask him," she said.

Jem made a soft sound and Tessa laughed as she settled back into place and swallowed his cock again.

Will surprised her by coming up behind her and adjusting her hips. He pulled them up higher and kept a hand on her back so she was still held down against Jem. Her heart rate skittered. She had been playing for control and she was about to lose it entirely. The twinge of anxiety that came with that realization didn't last long. Neither of them scared her. Even when they were being pushy and demanding it felt naive and enthusiastic instead of demanding.

She couldn't talk with the cock in her mouth so she pushed it out in magic. A wave of possessiveness. "Mine."

They both responded to the suggestion by grabbing on a little harder. Her jaw was starting to ache but she didn't want to stop. Not when it felt like that. Not when they were both touching her. They worked together to change the position until she was on her knees in front of Jem. She didn’t love being on the floor like this but Will had pushed her clothes up over her back and had his fingers between her legs.

She could enjoy it if he kept that up.

He didn’t stop and Tessa poured encouragement into everything from the way she moved her hips to the feel of the magic around them. Will wasn’t rushing it for once and she wanted to enjoy that. It slowed them all down and she took a break from bothering Jem to turn around and kiss Will who was crouched behind her, all smiles with a very suggestive glint in his eye.

“Stand up,” she said.

He did as he was asked and she pulled him into place. He was still fully dressed and she didn’t touch anything but his belt. In the end, she had to open his jacket to keep it out of the way but that was it. She pulled his cock free of his trousers and started to play with it. She settled in so she sat beside Jem and wrapped an arm around his neck to keep him close while she took Will into her mouth. Will being full dressed, the sun being high, the busy street outside or some combination of it all made Jem shyer than he had been. He watched her suck on Will but didn’t lean in to participate until she put Will’s cock right against his lips. That was all the suggestion he needed. He opened his mouth immediately.

Will swore and Jem pulled back like he’d been burned. Turning his face away and blushing.

Tessa scowled at Will.

“Sorry, that was, it was not what I was expecting but it was great,” Will said.

Tessa scowled again.

He was capable of such eloquence with his words and here he was making an ass of himself. He twisted his face into an exaggerated look of bafflement. Tessa shook her head at him. A little silent conversation that Jem missed because he was staring off into space with his cheeks still pink and his aura a mess of conflicting thoughts.

Jem turned back and Tessa schooled her own expression into something a little less judgmental. She played with his hair and leaned in to kiss his jawline until he started to forget that he was embarrassed.

“You’re beautiful,” Will said.

“She is, isn’t she?” Jem said.

“Yeah but I meant you,” Will said.

Jem froze up again. He didn’t pull away but his lips pressed together and he shifted. Will shook his head and dropped down to sit on the low coffee table across from the sofa. He was level with them now, cock still out but not as hard, and all his attention on Jem.

“I’m not making fun, James, I meant it,” Will said.

Then he leaned in and kissed him.

Jem’s emotions skittered and he just gaped at Will until Will pulled back. He started to swear again but he caught Tessa’s look and stopped. Jem looked away and then back and then at Tessa and then back to Will.

Jem nodded.

“Really?” Will asked.

Jem’s response was entirely in Chinese and Tessa didn’t understand a word of it. Will shook his head and then snorted out a laugh and leaned in to kiss him again. Tessa was still sitting on the sofa beside Jem, her arm thrown around his neck and her mouth close enough that when he leaned into the kiss, he bumped into her. The kiss was slow and curious and just awkward enough to make Tessa’s heart swell.

She started to get up, to pull back and let them have this moment but Jem didn’t let her go. He held her close and didn’t stop kissing Will.

"Not done with you yet," Will said when they finally came up for air.

"Me neither," Jem said.

Jem looked at her. The boys were very close together, foreheads touching. Tessa felt like she was on the edges of the moment. Will still had his eyes shut and a dazed happy smile on his face.

“Do you two want a little time together?” Tessa asked.

“Later, yes,” Will said, “Right now? You’re a part of this with us.”

Tessa laughed. She caught him by the fancy cravat he was wearing and pulled him toward her so she could kiss him.

“Will you share him with me?” she asked.

“Gladly,” Will said in a mock formal tone.

Jem snickered and buried his face against Will’s neck to hide another blush. He was cute. They were both cute but he was more prone to these moments of embarrassment that made her so protective. She pet his hair.

“Turn around,” Tessa said.

Tessa still use magic to help the process but this time she walked Will through opening Jem up. The man needed to learn how to slow himself down if he was going to become a decent lover. Just because Tessa could take it hard and fast with very little warm up didn’t mean that it was good form. Making Jem murmur and gasp with just his fingers was doing more to sell Will on the merits of foreplay than a lecture ever could so Tessa drew it out until Jem was hard and very ready.

She had lost most of her hold over him while she was distracted by the kiss. She took it back gently.

“I want this to last,” she said. “I’m not just going to play with you.”

“This time,” he said.

Tessa laughed and shrugged before she admitted, “This time.”

She explained what she wanted and got Will in position. Will lay back on the sofa and Jem settled in on top of him, Will's cock sunk deep in him. It left Jem panting, his head thrown back and his mouth open. They had to experiment a little bit with knees and angles until Jem could relax into it. Will was big and being ready for it didn’t mean that it didn’t still stretch and ache a little as Will slid in. Tessa watched them settle into it and whisper little in-jokes to each other.

Tessa slid down on his hard cock so Jem was held between them. He blinked up at her. She sat up, keeping her balance carefully so they didn’t all go tumbling to the ground. Will's arms came up around him, rubbing his stomach and his sides and keeping him from getting nervous as they started to move. Jem panted and his hands fluttered, touching her, reaching for Will, attempting to brace himself against the back of the sofa or the pillows.

Tessa had the most power. She set the rhythm nice and slow until she was sure that they were both enjoying it. Then she picked up speed. The position had her straddling Jem's lap and she settled into a rocking thrust that made him moan as she pushed him deeper into herself and farther back onto Will each time she moved her hips.

“You’re perfect,” Tessa whispered to him.

She stayed close to him so that he was pressed into both of them. Warm and close and - from the look on his face - a little overwhelming. He grabbed her and kissed her. Hard. Hungry. Needy. Tessa slowed him down. Kissing him back gently until he started calm.

Will stroked everything he could reach. Tessa had caught hold of his orgasm too. She didn't want him to reach orgasm before Jem was finished and she wasn't going to let Jem come until she was done. She kept the rhythm at something she could control so she could draw it out.

"You're making me crazy," Will murmured.

"Don't stop," Jem answered and that was enough to shut Will up.

Will thrust his hips up and Jem moaned. Tessa let Will find a rhythm and then tried to match it. Jem was moaning and shifting his hips against all the sensation and Tessa stroked his cheek. He blinked his eyes open and she smiled before she kissed him. He kissed her hard. His hands coming up to grab hold of her and pull her in close.

The intensity of the emotion behind that kiss broke through all her concentration. The threads of magic she was using to keep control fell apart. Jem came first, as soon as her power let him go. Will wasn't far behind. She had lost control. She was too deeply connected to both of them and the power fed into her own and she amplified it before she could think whether or not that was a good idea. It wrapped around her. Warm and thick and enough to drag her up over the edge along with them. She cried out and Jem just kissed her again.

In the aftermath, they pulled her in. They all tumbled down so they lay on the floor in a mess of limbs and pillows strewn off the sofa. It took a long time to drag herself back from the high of that much sexual energy spilling all over her without any control. Jem nuzzled her face and Will's heart beat under her ear.

"Wow."

"Hm."

Tessa couldn't even separate out their voices.

"Is she hurt?"

"I don't think so."

"Tess?"

"I'm not hurt," she said.

"Are you sure? You feel,” a hesitation, “Different.”

“Let out a little too much magic,” she said. “Perhaps more than a little if you can feel it.”

A laugh that Tessa felt as much as she heard. Magic and arousal she understood. They were measurable quantities in her life but emotions were less easily defined. She could read them and nudge them but she had never been knocked sideways by a feeling before.

“You’re a little possessive, have you noticed?” he said.

Will. She was starting to get her bearings back enough to identify which one was speaking.

“It is in my nature,” she said. “Succubi are the magpies of warlocks. Mine. Mine. Mine.”

“I resent the implication that I am a thing to be owned,” Jem said but there was no resentment in his tone or his aura. He was very content and it was written all over him. She giggled and reached out until she got her fingers in Jem’s hair and could play with it.

“He was mine first,” Will said.

“I can share as long as it’s you,” she said.

It was flirting but she meant it. Our Will. My Will. Our Jem. My Jem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It does not feel like it has been two months since I updated this fic. Two months is a long time.


End file.
